"Imagine If" Wide Walks

About

"Imagine If" Wide Walks is a series of TikTok videos inspired by the Wide Putin Walking that adds the snowclone "Imagine if X gets to the top of X / That would be funny." The videos, which became popular in early July 2020, used the format to gain viewer traction on hashtag pages they would normally not be featured on.

Origin

On June 9th, 2020, TikToker Slavik2.0 posted Boris Johnson in a wide walk set to Piano Fantasia’s “Song For Denise” (Maxi version) under the sound clip name "dźwięk oryginalny – slavik2.00" (shown below, left). The video gained over 189,400 likes in a month. On July 7th, 2020, TikToker jackgrab uploaded the first iteration of the snowclone using the wide walk format adding the text, "Imagine if a man got to the top of the 'feminism' hashtag That would be funny I think" (shown below, right). The video gained over 1.8 million likes in 10 days.

Precursor

Wide Putin Walking, also known as IT'S HIM, is a viral video of Russian President Vladimir Putin walking down a hallway, stretched and set to Piano Fantasia’s “Song For Denise” (Maxi version). The video is often paired with a caption or used to fill blank space in exploitables and first appeared online in early February 2020, mostly spreading on YouTube and Discord in May 2020. The footage used comes from Vladimir Putin's fourth term inauguration, which was streamed by RT on May 7th, 2018. The oldest recorded instance of Putin Walking edits was uploaded on Telegram^[2] to the channel "Ручка" on February 2nd, 2020, by user ToThePan (seen below).

Spread

On July 10th, 2020, TikToker eli.ross uploaded a variation where he proposes a Walmart employee getting to the top of the Target hashtag (shown below, left). The video accumulated over 585,700 likes in a week. On July 12th, jasmineaparviz posted a "revenge" variation in response to jackgrab's video which garnered over 587,800 likes in five days (shown below, center). On July 14th, TikToker the_grandma_barb uploaded an example with the text "imagine if an old person got to the top of the young hashtag" (shown below, right). The video acquired over 1.3 million likes in three days. StayHipp^[1] published an article on the trend.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References