Adele’s ‘Water Under the Bridge’ is a reluctant TikTok trend

It’s been a wild week on the internet with the release of Spotify’s annual Wrapped experience, and even TikTok was not immune to the Spotify Wrapped discourse.

Of course, that wasn’t the only thing trending on TikTok, not with Adele’s 2015 song “Water Under the Bridge” going viral upon the singer’s latest album drop. Surprisingly, it was also a big week for reality TV stars with both Wendy Ostefo and Kylie Jenner having a moment on the app.

Adele not making music for TikTok is water under the bridge

Three weeks ago Adele’s anticipated album 30 came out. In an interview with Zane Lowe, the British songstress pointedly said she didn’t make this album for TikTok. “If everyone is making music for the TikTok, who is making music for my generation, who is making the the music for my peers? I will gladly take that job,” she said.

But it turns out Adele had a TikTok song in her arsenal. “Water Under the Bridge,” a track off her 2015 album 25, went viral on the app this week.

Last week, @ramsthulani tweeted, “How come Adele never has any back up dancers?” In response, @motivatefenty replied with an edit of Megan Thee Stallion and her dancers grooving to “Water Under the Bridge.” Of course, Megan Thee Stallion’s dance has since become a TikTok trend. So far, over 57,000 videos have been made to Adele’s “Water Under the Bridge.”

What appears to be the first “Water Under the Bridge” video on TikTok was posted by @treclements on Nov. 29 and featured the text “my audition to be Adele’s back-up dancer.” The caption reads, “saw this on Twitter and have been hollering ever since.” Clements’s video has over 4.2 million views and almost 950,000 likes.

Another example of the trend is Julian Burzynski’s TikTok posted on Dec. 1 that has garnered over 3.5 million views and 121,000 likes.

Look how fun this Megan Thee Stallion choreography is!
Credit: TikTok / julianburzynski

The trend is a perfect combination of a beloved Adele classic and Megan Thee Stallion’s high-energy moves, so needless to say, it took the app by storm.

The dance is so fun that for the first time ever, I am considering learning a TikTok dance.

Are you a Nicki fan?

Another popular trend this week pulls the audio of an interview between Michael Rapport and Wendy Ostefo of Real Housewives of Potomac fame on The Wendy Williams Show. During the interview, Rapport asked Ostefo a simple question: “Are you a Nicki [Minaj] fan?” To which Ostefo replied, “What? Am I a Nicki fan? Pull up in the Sri Lanka.”

In an attempt to prove that she’s a Nicki fan, Ostefo gets the lyrics to the rapper’s iconic “Monster” verse wrong. The actual bars are, “Pull up in the monster / automobile gangsta with a bad bitch from Sri Lanka.”

The audio has produced over 320,000 TikToks and counting. You might expect that TikTokkers are using this audio to make jokes about being a poser, and some are, but most creators are using the snippet to show that they are, in fact, something — so there is a confusing discrepancy between the audio and the trend.

In one popular video posted by @ozzythedoxie, a wiener dog is told to sit. The text reads, “Are you a good boy?” Then, “Am I a good bOy??” Followed by the dog sitting. The TikTok has over 1.2 million likes. In another clip that’s more true to the audio, @probably.drew writes “do you skate?,” “what? do i skate?,” “i wear thrasher.” Then, @probably.drew tries to do a skate trick and falls. The video has over 1.7 million views.

Stormi, you look like Mommy, baby

Ostefo isn’t the only reality TV star to have a viral TikTok sound this week. An audio of Kylie Jenner saying “Stormi, you look just like Mommy, baby,” has taken over my FYP.

The sound has over 88,000 videos made to it and was first posted on TikTok back in September by @stormiibabii in a video with photos of Stormi dressed like her mom Kylie at the 2019 Met Gala. The original video has 17.2 million views and 2.3 million likes.

The trend has since evolved into users sharing what things their future children will do that’s just like them. It’s a classic TikTok trend where users roast themselves and, as always, the more relatable the roasts are, the funnier the content. One example is @notkaelynwilkins’ video that reads, “When my future daughter starts googling her symptoms on WebMD and sends herself into a panic attack.” Another TikTok from @user272637386 says, “when my future daughter is so socially awkward she can’t form a sentence around people she doesn’t know.”

A little too relatable for my taste.
Credit: TikTok / user272637386

Spotify Wrapped

The first week of December is coming to a close, and ’tis the season to analyze our annual Spotify Wrapped results. On Dec. 1, Wrapped conquered social media, and people were quick to take to Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok to react to their top songs and artists.

Before this year’s Spotify Wrapped dropped, users on TikTok were expressing their anticipation with audio edits of Ariana Grande’s “Can You Stay Up All Night.” When the song cuts out, users then show the song or artist that ruined their Wrapped. For example, @jae.tpwk made a TikTok that shows “Man or Muppet” from The Muppets Movie soundtrack on their list.

Credit: TikTok / jae.tpwk

Credit: TikTok / jae.tpwk

I wouldn’t want the Muppets soundtrack coming up in my Spotify Wrapped either.
Credit: TikTok / jae.tpwk

Two additional audios used in response to Wrapped were English TV personality Gemma Collins saying “I am not ashamed to admit it, it’s hell in there. It’s horror. You have to be a certain type of person to survive” and an audio posted by @thereal_becca that goes, “fun fact about me is that no guy has ever met me and said you’re not like other girls because I am exactly like other girls.”

TikTokkers used Collins’s quote to react to having artists like Phoebe Bridgers, Fiona Apple, and Elliott Smith in their top artists. People who had popular artists with primarily female fanbases like Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, and BTS used the second audio.

And if you see Taylor Swift’s “All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version)” at the top of my Wrapped next year, no you didn’t ♥️.