Bear Videos With Kanye West's "On Sight"

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About

Bear Videos With Kanye West's "On Sight" refers to a series of bear videos that uses the song "On Sight" by the artist formerly known as Kanye West, specifically a part of the song's instrumental that sounds like techno or hardstyle. The trend started on TikTok in 2023, later spreading to Instagram where it became prevalent in Instagram Reels.

Origin

On March 29th, 2023, TikToker^[1] @gibgobgingus posted a video of a bear walking around outside and scratching its back on a tree, set to the instrumental of "On Sight" by the artist formerly known as Kanye West.^[2] The video gained roughly 5.7 million plays and 857,900 likes in five months and is currently the first-known video of the trend (shown below).

Spread

Going into April 2023, the TikToker's bear video was replicated by others who posted similar bear videos with the same sound.^[3] For instance, the first-known variant was posted by TikToker^[4] @biggary814 on April 3rd, 2023, gaining roughly 1 million plays and 179,700 likes in four months (shown below, left). On April 14th, 2023, TikToker^[5] @alexanderdv0 posted an iteration outside of the original sound,^[3] gaining roughly 154,400 plays and 33,600 likes in four months (shown below, right).

The trend started to spread elsewhere going into mid-2023, such as to Instagram in July 2023. For instance, an early example was posted by Instagram^[6] user @on_site_daily on July 12th, 2023, gaining roughly 62,500 likes in four weeks. On July 24th, 2023, Instagram^[7] user @joana.×0×0 posted a video of them scrolling through their Reels feed proclaiming that all the bear videos were rotting their brain, earning roughly 140,300 likes in two weeks (shown below).

By August 7th, 2023, the sound^[3] from TikToker^[1] @gibgobgingus' video had amassed over 7,400 videos. At the same time, the "On Sight" audio^[8] on Instagram Reels had amassed roughly 9,200 videos, most of which were bears videos or other types of animals.