Coming Back to LJ to Document TikTok Trends
First of all, I am attempting to post this through the LJ app and I have no clue what I’m doing so I don’t know if it will work.
Second of all, but more importantly, I have decided to use this languishing relic of internets past to track TikTok trends over time, because I find their rise and fall fascinating.
A TikTok trend tends to last about a week. Something will come across your fyp (for you page), and perhaps it’s a little weird, or maybe even fairly benign. But then the next day it’s clear people are glomming onto it. Then the day after that it’s everywhere. Then it starts showing up in wild iterations. Then it sort of fizzles out.
Depending on what side of TikTok you’re on, you might miss some trends completely while being inundated with others.
In just the past month, I’ve watched the rise and fall of Corn Kid, the One Thing About Me trend, and most recently and perhaps most bewildering of all: Chrome Honey Biscuit Lady.
She is what’s pushing me over the edge into finally documenting this shit for real.
The first TikTok I saw was a filter of a chrome lady walking across a beach while singing along to a song about tasting a biscuit. The text on the video was something like “Is anyone else on Chrome Biscuit Lady TikTok?” And I was like…there is no way this is a thing.
And then it all started to unfold. First there were just more and more chrome lady biscuit posts on my feed, everyone was confused but along for the ride.
Then I clicked through to the sound to find some lady in her 40’s or 50’s singing the song in a thrift store while some fellow plays the keyboard. It looked like an earnest performance.
But then we find out it’s a manufactured band called Toasters ’N’ Moose. And then a man named Vincent Gargiulo makes a TikTok explaining that the song came from a movie he made in 2011 called “Chicken in the Shadows,” and that while Toasters ’N’ Moose aren’t real, they still went on the George Lopez show where both George Lopez AND Billy Ray Cyrus sang versions of the biscuit song. And later they did a reunion tour.
Anyway the lore just keeps getting more compelling. It’s like solving a scavenger hunt with a bunch of people online except I don’t have to do anything but watch it unfold.
As for why the chrome lady filter was chosen for this, the best conclusion I have is that people discovered if you tilt your head a certain way while using the filter, you can see up her skirt (thus seeing her “biscuit”). I find this aspect less compelling than the Toasters ’N’ Moose saga.
Anyway I intend from here on out to post semi-daily updates about trends I’m seeing on my fyp, how they’re evolving, and when they start to fizzle. Because I find it fascinating.