Adding "Fame" to Every Song / Left Boy's "Sweet Dreams"

Submission 307

About

Adding "Fame" to Every Song refers to a TikTok trend of adding the song "Sweet Dreams" by Left Boy to viral sounds and songs, centering on the lyrics, "Fame, What You’re Lookin’ at, Baby." The original video was posted to TikTok in April 2024. As many TikTokers tried making equally viral sounds as the original, satirical iterations surfaced in late September 2024, in which meme creators nonsensically added the "Fame" sound to any song.

Origin

The song "Sweet Dreams" by Left Boy was released on July 20th, 2012, as a part of his album Guns, Bitches and Weed.^[1] The song's post-chorus includes Left Boy singing, "Fame, what you're lookin' at, baby." The song was posted to YouTube^[2] as early as July 19th, 2012, amassing over 2.6 million views in 12 years (shown below).

In 2024, Left Boy's "Sweet Dreams" was reposted to TikTok by various accounts who aimed to make a sped-up audio that'd start a viral trend or dance.

On April 16th, 2024, TikToker^[2] @tofucrazycat posted a video that was a screen recording of their For You page which combined the songs "Hall of Fame" by The Script and Left Boy's "Sweet Dreams." The TikToker wrote, "NEW SOUND OMG?!" and received over 4.5 million plays and 420,900 likes in five months (shown below).

Spread

Going into 2024, others on the app used the TikTok sound^[3] of the abovementioned video, gaining over 24,200 posts in five months.

Later in 2024, others attempted to make similar "Fame" sounds, like TikToker^[4] @.sukijj on July 14th, 2024, who combined it with "All I Wanted" by Paramore, receiving over 4.9 million plays and 421,000 likes in two months (shown below).

TikTokers began making satirical versions of viral "Fame" sounds going into late 2024, by inserting the "Fame" sound into nonsensical songs. For instance, on September 24th, TikToker^[5] @nichellestan posted an iteration, gaining over 356,700 plays and 44,100 likes in six days (shown below).

Increasingly viral iterations of the trend persisted on TikTok^[6] in late September 2024.