One day before the WHO declared the coronavirus a global pandemic, 19-year-old Keara Wilson 1 turned to TikTok to alleviate her boredom. Within an hour, she had created and uploaded 15 seconds of original choreography to the new single “Savage” by Houston rapper Megan Thee Stallion onto TikTok. 2 In the early days of the pandemic, people of all backgrounds swayed their hips, rolled their backs, and taunt- ingly stuck out their tongues to Wilson’s original choreography. The dance spread rapidly until Megan herself was performing Wilson’s choreography online and on-stage. In a matter of days, #SavageChal- lenge became one of the first viral dance challenge of the pandemic amassing billions of views on TikTok. At face value, Wilson’s story reflects the rhetoric that has made TikTok Gen Z’s app of choice: the possibility for any bored teen to go viral from their bedroom. And dance, as the de facto language of mainstream TikTok, has become a reliable method for virality on the app. 3 But, in reality, Wilson posted her choreography five times to TikTok before it was catapulted to virality by TikTok’s most famous influencer, Charli D’Amelio (128 M followers). 4 D’Amelio, whose in- famous popularization of Jalaiah Harmon’s 2019 Renegade dance marked an important shift in the culture of crediting on TikTok after early failures of adopters to tag the creator, posted videos performing (and tagging) Wilson’s choreography for three days in a row. D’Amelio accumulated over 30 M likes with the dance. 5 The “D’Amelio Effect” aligned with the digital marketing campaign for Megan’s new album that (urged by TikTok) put their sponsorship money into “Savage.” 6 Predictably, the #SavageChallenge blew up serving as a vehicle for the album and D’Amelio’s continued success. Like many other Black girls creating dances on TikTok and Dubsmash, Wilson (3.2 M followers) enjoyed relatively modest success from the challenge while the great- est rewards were reserved for Megan, D’Amelio, and mega-influencer 2 Digital Blackface and the Troubling Intimacies of TikTok Dance Challenges Cienna Davis DOI: 10.4324/9781003280705-4