About

The Last Demon Dance refers to a viral video of a reckless driving suspect in California breakdancing as police hold him at gunpoint following a car chase with the authorities. The story was originally reported in March 2019 along with a clip of the man dancing. In early 2023, the video became the subject of edits on TikTok and his dance became known as the "last demon dance" as users spread a hoax claiming that high-ranking gang members do the dance when caught by police.

Origin

On March 20th, 2019, FOX 11 Los Angeles^[1] and numerous other media outlets reported that a man in San Fernando Valley, California, wanted for reckless driving, began breakdancing at police gunpoint after leading police on a car chase. That day, the Associated Press YouTube^[2] channel uploaded a video taken from a helicopter of the man breakdancing, garnering over 136,000 views in four years (shown below, left). That same day, the ABC7 YouTube^[3] channel uploaded a separate video of the event showing the dancer closer up, garnering over 51,000 views in four years (shown below, right).

On February 7th, 2023, Russian TikToker^[4] @biker.roblox228 posted the video with a song added overtop, writing in the description what translates to: "the last dance of the demon – it is danced only by gang leaders or significant persons of their district showing their importance." The video garnered over 4 million views in a month. There is no further evidence online of a dance known as the last demon dance that is performed by gang leaders and the man arrested was never reported to be a gang leader.

Spread

The video continued to become the subject of edits over the following weeks as users added new songs and effects over the video, often shared as a video of someone doing the "last demon dance." On March 21st, 2023, TikToker^[5] @fx_editsfy posted an edit of the video, garnering over 1.1 million views in a week (shown below, left). On March 25th, TikToker^[6] @millionairehabits posted an edit that adds additional audio to the end where police call for a SWAT team, garnering over 3.1 million views in three days (shown below, right). On March 26th, TikToker^[7] @.c.al.eb posted an edit using the close-up video, garnering over 31,000 views in two days.

Search Interest

External References