Instead Of This, Try This

About

Instead Of This, Try This, refers to parodies of dance move tutorials made by TikToker @maryrdances. The name stems from the caption or text overlay the dancer puts on her videos to suggest better dance moves. Parodies of @maryrdance's TikToks began in November 2022 and continued into 2023, with TikTokers recreating her steps to show how awkward and strange the dance moves look.

Origin

TikToker "Mary dance tutorials" began posting dance tutorials and fitness content in December 2020.^[1] She is often seen holding a wine glass in her dance tutorials, which acts as a prop aid for dance moves you could do at a party or club. On October 11th, 2022, TikToker^[2] @maryrdance posted a dance tutorial that received generally unfavorable reviews, gathering over 7 million plays and 250,000 likes in three months (seen below, left). On November 10th, 2022, TikToker^[3] @maddison_bush posted the earliest known viral parody of a @maryrdance video, gathering over 90,000 plays and 8,000 likes in over two months (seen below, right).

Spread

Sometime in late December 2022, @maryrdance posted a now-deleted dance video showing another "easy club dance move." The earliest known parody of this video was posted by TikToker^[4] @splice.girl on January 3rd, 2023, gathering over 500,000 plays and 48,000 likes in over a week (seen below, left). On January 6th, 2023, TikToker^[5] @aereyyyy posted a video stitch with @maryrdance, gathering over 1.4 million plays and 200,000 likes in six days (seen below, right).

On January 6th, 2023, TikToker^[6] @nataliemoralesloves posted a video duetting @maryrdance, gathering over 280,000 plays and 12,000 likes in six days (seen below, left). On January 12th, 2023, TikToker^[7] @litglosst posted a video parodying @maryrdance as well, gathering over 400,000 plays and 70,000 likes in a day (seen below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References