How to Survive This Plague – 3 Learn a TikTok Dance

TikTok is full of 15-to-60-second-long user-choreographed dances, some of which go viral. Here, nine to try to teach yourself at home, ranked by difficulty. Can you get good enough to upload your own?

- By Sarah Spellings

1. Hit Every Beat Challenge

With “U Can’t Touch This,” by MC Hammer

This is easy if and only if you already know the Macarena. It’s a good one to warm up with. Think of it as the equivalent of a child’s pose at the beginning of Vinyasa class. Do the Macarena twice as fast, pretend to drum a few times, then hit the “woah.” The woah is probably the most important TikTok dance move. Move your left arm down at a diagonal and move your right arm up, parallel to the left. Pulse. Confusingly, there are some other versions of the woah, most commonly a kind of “turning a car wheel” motion, but those are not the proper woah to do in this context.

2. “Say So”

By Doja Cat

If Laura Dern can do this one, so can you. It’s short, sweet, and requires a lot of attitude. I learned it after drinking two glasses of wine, but that’s not necessary. The key moves are the body roll and the punch, which you’ll find in a lot of TikTok dances. I put on a tutorial and dedicated five minutes to getting the basic moves down. Now, my muscle memory has kicked in well enough that I can add my own flair. That’s another key to TikTok dancing: Add your own flair. This is your time to shine! Doja Cat liked this dance so much she put the creator, Haley Sharpe, a.k.a. @yodelinghaley, in the music video.

3. “Relationship”