Banana Shake Dance

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About

The Banana Shake Dance is a TikTok dance set to "Banana Shake" by Bao. The dance comes from the original choreography of the Wonder Girls song "Tell Me," and was popularized by an edit of the K-pop group NewJeans in December 2022. The dance, which involves rhythmically moving your arms and waist at the same time in opposite directions, became notably popular on TikTok and YouTube in early 2023.

Origin

The dance comes from a portion of the choreography for The Wonder Girls song "Tell Me" (shown below).

On December 25th, 2022, TikToker^[1] @nwjns.offc posted a video edit of the K-pop group NewJeans dancing to "Tell Me,"^[7] adding "Banana Shake" by Bao^[2] over a portion of their choreography. The video garnered over 21.3 million views in three months (shown below).

In January 2023, TikTokers began using the video's original sound, including for videos where they do the same dance. It is unclear who first posted a video doing the same dance under the video's original sound. One of the earliest videos was uploaded by TikToker^[3] @dada_nothing on January 3rd, 2023, garnering over 3 million views in two months (shown below).

Spread

The dance became increasingly popular throughout the first quarter of 2023 on both TikTok and YouTube, also inspiring animations where characters do the dance. For example, on January 12th, 2023, TikToker^[4] @cinnannoe posted a video doing the dance that gained over 770,000 views in two months (shown below, left). On February 8th, TikToker^[5] @drunkbobaposted a video doing the dance, garnering over 2.5 million views in a month (shown below, right).

On February 23rd, YouTuber^[6] Raine Emery posted a video doing the dance in Super Mario cosplay, garnering over 1.1 million views in a month (shown below).