As we all wrap up the final month of 2021, TikTok has posted a blog post along with a video celebrating yet another successful year for the platform by honoring its top performing videos and creators.
Honestly, the amount of creators and popular videos displayed in the video, despite its short one-minute length, make it very difficult for me to point out highlights. After all, TikTok enjoyment is not subjective and my favorite videos may not necessarily be everyone else’s. At any rate, I’ll still mention some highlights that I believe managed to gain attention outside of just TikTok as a platform, and hope that I covered the general bases well enough. Starting us off: music choice. The YouTube video (which I’ll refer to as a celebration from here on) is set to the tune of Kid Laori’s extremely popular song Stay. This is a song that’s special to TikTok, since I’m pretty sure that this site is very integral to why it’s such a well-known song today. Stay was the backdrop to so many TikToks, to the point that even platforms such as Instagram and YouTube had every other video featuring it by association.
Moving on to content, the most popular TikTok across 2021 is the very famous and incredibly endearing Drone Dancing video by David Allen. The video features two grown men doing the most energetic, yet also low-key, dance set to you guessed it – Stay. It’s a TikTok that performed incredibly well, led to a lot of recreations, and in general is incredibly fun to watch multiple times on end. That last part might also be why the video did so well. Other popular videos featured Zack King doing his regular editing and performative magic, and Sunisa Lee celebrating her gold win in just the most wholesome way possible. It’s really fun to see just how unproblematic the top videos of this year are. One of the top videos is just a chipmunk hiding nuts in its cheeks, how can anyone not like that?
While Stay was the backdrop to the TikTok celebration, it wasn’t the most popular song across the platform, either in the USA or outside of it. Shocking, right? The most popular song in the USA ended up being Adderall by Popp Hunna, and the most popular song across the globe was Astronaut in the Ocean by Masked Wolf. Many other popular stars such as Olivia Rodrigo, Maneskin, Doja Cat, and Cardi B made the rounds as well.
It’s been a good run for creators on the platform as well, with life as a content creator on TikTok proving to be incredibly lucrative. Breakout stars in the USA included Chef Puff, the culinary cat, at number one. Other people in the top ten list included US darling Olivia Rodrigo, Taylor Swift, and OneyaD’amelio (who is second on the list). The top breakout star across the world however, and I’m sure this comes as no surprise to anyone, is Khaby Lame. With a singular deadpan expression and a swing of his hand, Khaby set about ridiculing over-complicated life hack videos on the platform and saw a lot of success in the process.
Read next: The new Transparency Center of TikTok highlights the details of content removal
Honestly, the amount of creators and popular videos displayed in the video, despite its short one-minute length, make it very difficult for me to point out highlights. After all, TikTok enjoyment is not subjective and my favorite videos may not necessarily be everyone else’s. At any rate, I’ll still mention some highlights that I believe managed to gain attention outside of just TikTok as a platform, and hope that I covered the general bases well enough. Starting us off: music choice. The YouTube video (which I’ll refer to as a celebration from here on) is set to the tune of Kid Laori’s extremely popular song Stay. This is a song that’s special to TikTok, since I’m pretty sure that this site is very integral to why it’s such a well-known song today. Stay was the backdrop to so many TikToks, to the point that even platforms such as Instagram and YouTube had every other video featuring it by association.
Moving on to content, the most popular TikTok across 2021 is the very famous and incredibly endearing Drone Dancing video by David Allen. The video features two grown men doing the most energetic, yet also low-key, dance set to you guessed it – Stay. It’s a TikTok that performed incredibly well, led to a lot of recreations, and in general is incredibly fun to watch multiple times on end. That last part might also be why the video did so well. Other popular videos featured Zack King doing his regular editing and performative magic, and Sunisa Lee celebrating her gold win in just the most wholesome way possible. It’s really fun to see just how unproblematic the top videos of this year are. One of the top videos is just a chipmunk hiding nuts in its cheeks, how can anyone not like that?
While Stay was the backdrop to the TikTok celebration, it wasn’t the most popular song across the platform, either in the USA or outside of it. Shocking, right? The most popular song in the USA ended up being Adderall by Popp Hunna, and the most popular song across the globe was Astronaut in the Ocean by Masked Wolf. Many other popular stars such as Olivia Rodrigo, Maneskin, Doja Cat, and Cardi B made the rounds as well.
It’s been a good run for creators on the platform as well, with life as a content creator on TikTok proving to be incredibly lucrative. Breakout stars in the USA included Chef Puff, the culinary cat, at number one. Other people in the top ten list included US darling Olivia Rodrigo, Taylor Swift, and OneyaD’amelio (who is second on the list). The top breakout star across the world however, and I’m sure this comes as no surprise to anyone, is Khaby Lame. With a singular deadpan expression and a swing of his hand, Khaby set about ridiculing over-complicated life hack videos on the platform and saw a lot of success in the process.
Read next: The new Transparency Center of TikTok highlights the details of content removal