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TikTok continued its reign as a social media juggernaut throughout 2022, further cementing its place among competitors such as Meta’s Facebook and Instagram. TikTok now attracts nearly 750 million users around the globe, according to estimates from eMarketer, as well as their dollars; views of the hashtag #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt soared to 31 billion views this year as of writing.
With a record number of users on TikTok, the platform continued to pump out videos and trends. Many of these trends, from catchy user-generated songs and TikTok’s characteristic dance routines to new types of food, crossed over from TikTok into popular culture—and even into the marketing sphere.
Here are five of the biggest TikTok trends in 2022.
TikTok has propelled dozens of food items and recipes to virality over the years, from the charcuterie board to influencer Emily Mariko’s salmon rice bowl. So, it’s no surprise that the platform also spawned several new food-related trends this year—perhaps the biggest of them being the “butter board.” This appetizer is exactly as it sounds: softened butter slathered onto a serving board, topped with edible additions including herbs, vegetables or condiments, and served with chunks of bread. Justine Doiron, a TikTok creator who develops and shares recipes, launched the butter board trend with a Sept. 15 video demonstrating the process of creating one of the appetizers.
Since then, the hashtag #ButterBoard has garnered 420 million views, with thousands of TikTok users uploading videos of their own takes on the recipe. Brands, too, have gotten in on the action, from Ben & Jerry’s posting a TikTok of an “ice cream board” to Jimmy John’s jokingly dousing a cutting board in its “Kickin Ranch” sauce and dipping sandwiches into it.
“You didn’t think we’d miss out on this trend, did you?” the caption beneath the Ben & Jerry’s TikTok reads.
I like this one idk I’m in a silly goofy butter mood
When Nicki Minaj released the song “Super Freaky Girl” in mid-August, TikTok users were instantly enthralled. The song spawned two separate dances almost immediately—created by Lars Gummer and Maddy O’Rourke, respectively—and the hashtag #SuperFreakyGirl has attracted 1.6 billion views.
But Minaj’s song also spurred another trend, inspired by the line “One thing about me, I’m the baddest alive.” In September, TikTok creators started using the phrase “One thing about me” as a jumping-off point to tell embarrassing, traumatic and just downright wild stories about their lives, which they share by rapping along to the instrumental version of “Super Freaky Girl.” Artists including Meghan Trainor and Rebecca Black also contributed their stories to the hashtag #OneThingAboutMe, which accumulated 1.8 billion views as of writing.
Similar to Minaj’s “Super Freaky Girl,” singer (and talented flutist) Lizzo’s song “About Damn Time” quickly seized TikTok’s attention following the April release of Lizzo’s album “Special.” The song skyrocketed to virality, due in part to creator Jaeden Gomez’s video sharing a dance routine to the song on April 22, which as of writing had almost 20 million views. The dance swept across TikTok, with the hashtag #AboutDamnTimeChallenge receiving more than 40 million views and the more general hashtag #AboutDamnTime attracting more than two billion. Lizzo even recognized Gomez for her creation of the viral dance, inviting the choreographer to perform the dance alongside her during “The Late Late Show with James Corden.”
The virality of “About Damn Time” represents only a fraction of Lizzo’s overall success in 2022. Throughout the year, she also starred in marketing efforts from Instacart, Logitech, Google and the Library of Congress.
One of TikTok’s most viral—and catchiest—songs this year came from an unconventional source: an interview response from journalist Louis Theroux. During an appearance on YouTube creator Amelia Dimoldenberg’s series “Chicken Shop Date” in February, Dimoldenberg asked Theroux to perform part of a rap he wrote for an episode of his documentary series “Louis Theroux’s Weird Weekends” back in 2000. The awkward, yet somewhat charming, rap—whose now-iconic lyrics include, “My money don’t jiggle jiggle, it folds”—skyrocketed to virality after TikTok music producers @dukeandjones created a remix of the song in March as part of their “adding autotune to random videos” TikTok series.
The duo’s video has since received more than 80 million views and eight million likes. It has inspired a viral two-person dance trend created by TikTok user Jess Qualter. And the song extended into marketing this year, too, recently featuring in a Black Friday TV spot from Amazon.
Seven-year-old Tariq really likes corn. His heartfelt passion for the vegetable turned him into a viral sensation almost overnight, after the TikTok page @recesstherapy uploaded a clip from an interview with Tariq, in which he describes everything he loves about corn. That video garnered more than 1 million likes—but it was a musical remix of the interview that propelled Tariq to internet fame.
The song, titled “It’s Corn!”, was produced by musical group “The Gregory Brothers,” a quartet also behind the song “Chrissy Wake Up,” a remix of dialog from the Netflix series “Stranger Things” that also captivated TikTok this year. The group’s original Aug. 18 TikTok featuring “It’s Corn!” drew in nearly 85 million views and received 10.7 million likes, quickly taking the platform by storm. Brands started to join in on the trend, with companies playing on the line, “For me, I really like corn” by sharing their passion for something related to their brand—in United Airlines’ case, for example, airplanes.
Corn-related brands also immediately began partnering with Tariq, who soon became known as “Corn Kid,” after the song went viral. Chipotle worked with Tariq for an Aug. 26 TikTok video of him ordering a burrito bowl of only corn, which amassed more than nine million likes. Green Giant, meanwhile, put Tariq at the center of the company’s corn-centric Thanksgiving campaign.
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