Better Off Alone

Submission 10,020

About

Better Off Alone is a critically acclaimed 1999 pop song by Deutch musician Alice DJ, considered a classic in the genre by many. In early 2021 the song became popular as an original sound on TikTok, related to several trends on the platform including a popular dance trend.

Origin

On July 19th, 1999, Alice DJ released "Better Off Alone,"^[1] the lead single from her upcoming album Who Needs Guitars Anyway? Although met with a lukewarm reception upon release, the song gained critical acclaim over the years and has been covered by a number of artists.^[2] On June 17th, 2010, the song was uploaded to YouTube, garnering over 107 million views in 11 years (shown below).

Spread

"Better Off Alone" has appeared in a number of popular video edits and remixes in the past decade. For example, on January 15th, 2016, cpwudani uploaded a remixed version of the song used in Roblox to YouTube,^[3] garnering over 500,000 views in 4 years (shown below, left).

On December 21st, 2017, sad meme boi uploaded a video titled "hammie boye" to YouTube^[4] in which a hamster tries to get a cardboard tube off its head set to the song, garnering over 6 million views in 3 years (shown below, right).

DJ Dog Trend

On November 12th, 2020, @thetushouse uploaded a video to TikTok ^[5] where it appears like their dog is a DJ rhythmically bobbing its head to "Better Off Alone" in a room surrounded by multi-colored lights (shown below). The video gained over 22,000 views in 3 months. This is the earliest known video following the trend set to this song.

Shortly after @thetushouse's video, other TikTokers began uploading videos performing the trend with their dogs.

On December 11th, 2020, @joshjohnson1515 uploaded a video to TikTok^[6] following the trend, garnering over 19 million views in a month (shown below, left). A repost of the video gained over 336,000 additional views on Instagram.^[12] On December 13th, @mathildethinghuus uploaded a similar video,^[7] garnering over 16.9 million views in a comparable span of time (shown below, right). As of February 2021, these are the two most popular videos following the trend.

Stop Motion Dance Trend

On December 23rd, 2020, @deecashel uploaded a video to TikTok^[8] set to "Better Off Alone" in which she uses precise cuts to make it appear as if she and her friend are teleporting to various positions in the room along with the beat of the song, striking a new pose each time they reappear (shown below). The video gained over 911,000 views in just under 2 months.

In January of 2021 the trend took off as TikTokers began uploading their own renditions of the video to the platform (examples shown below from January 13th and 15th, 2021).^[9]^[10]

The trend soon spread outside of TikTok as people began creating animated versions of it on other platforms.

For example, on February 1st, idieasvirgin uploaded a video edit to Instagram^[13] set to the song in which Squidward from the cartoon series SpongeBob Squarepants performs the trend, garnering over 78,000 views in 10 days (shown below).

On February 2nd, @hannersimmo uploaded a video^[11] following the trend, garnering over 4.3 million views in a week (shown below). As of February 11th, 2021, this is the most popular video on TikTok following the trend. As of the same date, the sound for "Better Off Alone" has been used in over 100,000 videos on the platform.

On February 4th, 2021, igothydrogen posted an animation of Big Chungus performing the trend to Instagram^[14] and YouTube,^[15] garnering over 5,000 views in a week on the former and 1,300 on the latter.

Mmmm Cow

Mmmm Cow refers to a series of video edits of a scene from the 2006 animated film Barnyard in which cow character Otis teases a mailman behind his back. In the videos, Otis is either replaced with other While the first video within the format went viral in October 2020, it did not achieve popularity until February 8th, 2021, when content creator pamcinema posted a Better Off Alone version of the meme that received over 439,000 views and 63,600 likes on Instagram^[16] in six weeks (shown below).