Seriously, there has to be a cap on the number of times someone gets to play a song over and over again.
For someone else’s sanity and well-being, a time cop should return to the day TikTok vlogger Eric Eruption posted Ting Ting Tang Tang and beam him out to another galaxy.
To date, the video probably has been reproduced into thousands of baby Ting Tang cockroaches crawling frantically in your mobile gadget.
Kidding aside, let’s forget about the virality of this video. Instead, the critical question is, what made this famous in the first place?
@ericeruptiontai PART 2: saang location natin NEXT?? #bigboydance #eruptionchallenge ♬ 原聲 – ABCandE
If the melody and the beat are good, you’re golden.
TikTok as a platform took off because of the simple idea of creating music, dancing, and a venue to be seen and shared.
Pop songs are catchy because composers and music producers have figured out patterns to which people respond intrinsically.
If a beat makes you bob your head or puts you in the mood, it is because a part of your brain responds to rhythm and melody.
Over time, musicians and producers can instinctively identify certain chord progressions and notations that attract the ears of the general public.
If you listen to a Beatles hit, the same chord progression is used for a Justin Bieber song.
Music like Beauty has proportion and a characteristic that is generally acceptable.
It starts with a verse and a great hook.
The next thing to consider is the lyrics. They convey the story and suggestively create mental pictures while listening to a song.
The easier the words to remember, the better for recall. Take foreign language songs for size. Macarena, La Bamba, Gangnam style, and Ting Ting Tang only make sense if you speak Spanish, Korean, or Vietnamese.
But if the words you hear are easy to remember, you’ll sing along even if you don’t understand something you’re singing.
Visually, who’s doing it matters.
Whoever came up with the dance steps to the Ting Ting Tang TikTok video should be commended for the choreography.
It’s easy to copy, and the transitions are entertaining. Vlogger Eric Eruption choosing this song for TikTok is shrewd.
Seeing a big guy dance to it with grace, accompanied by a group of dudes in the middle of a busy street, catches attention. It’s the kind of video that is amusing enough to share, rewatch and mimic for many people.
The novelty of seeing a bunch of straight men dancing to a Vietnamese love song is something you don’t see every day.
Add the countless beautiful influencers who followed suit, and what you have here is a perfect storm of events and elements that pushed this content to go viral.
Audience participation and emotional investment
People enjoy dancing and sometimes enjoy watching themselves dance. Watching others look like buffoons is a guilty pleasure, but generally, most people are attracted to dance, especially if it’s expertly done.
Dance is such a powerful display of emotion and expression that, when coupled with great music, it produces a potent stimulus. How many Tik-tokers have gained thousands, if not millions, of followers just because they dance well?
The more people enjoy it. The more people join in.
Please let Ting Ting die a natural death.
Like most trendy content on social media, they have a shelf life. No matter how good or how many times someone watches Titanic, the movie, you know it will still sink in the end.
But that’s what makes the fleeting attention span of Gen Z, or people for that matter, a paradox.
No matter how bad it may seem, it sure does increase the effort and frequency of making good, if not entertaining, content a must.
