How do TikTok trends start? 11 AI trends traced to the first post

How do TikTok trends start?

In four steps, in roughly this order: a source post, one copyable moment cut out of it, a twist (a famous character, your own face, a pet), then copies by strangers. The step that makes it a trend is the cut, not the original. Hotel Lobby's studio show had been on YouTube for four years before the first AI recast we found.

What the eight 2026 trends on this site have in common, from the posts themselves:

• The source can be any age. Bulin 47's street freestyle got its first AI swap 4 days after it went up. The Alors on Danse sketch comes from a French TV show in 2010.
• Most don't start on TikTok. Four sources are on YouTube (one of them the TV sketch) and one is a film posted on Instagram. The other three went up on TikTok, two of them on Instagram as well.
• Three of the eight sources were made with AI: a fake 1980s fantasy film and two pet clips. Both pet clips copy moves a person had posted first.
• The moment people copy is short: our cuts of the eight run 9 to 28 seconds, and half are one unbroken shot.
• Search peaks last. For the five trends that copy real footage, Google searches for the name peaked 4 to 10 days after the first AI version we found.

11 AI trends, from the first post to the search peak

The eight trends you can make here come first, newest source first, then three 2025 trends for comparison (those aren't on the site). Started as is the clip people copy, which is often not the version in your feed. Search peak is the busiest day for the trend's name in Google search worldwide, from our own lifecycle data (read 15 Oct 2026).

Post dates come from the posts themselves: the YouTube videos as we read them on 16 Oct 2026, the TikTok and Instagram posts as our daily trend run read them on 15–16 Oct. The first AI version is the earliest we found, so an earlier one may exist. The 2025 rows' posts and dates come from Know Your Meme.

Where do TikTok trends come from?

In our set, from five places. They differ most in how old the source is and who made it: the old ones are professional performances, and the new ones are phone videos and AI clips.

• An old performance someone finds again. Hotel Lobby copies a COLORS show that went up on 17 Jun 2022 and had 131.9M YouTube views when we checked on 16 Oct 2026, so plenty of people had seen it. The first AI recast we found came four years and three months later, on 16 Sep 2026, when @glorify_studio put two characters from Suits at the hanging mic. Alors on Danse is older still: a 2010 TV sketch that Jamel TV, Jamel Debbouze's own channel, uploaded in a clean edit on 6 Nov 2025. The AI versions began 11 months after that upload.
• A music video, months after it came out. Dave's Raindance video went up on 9 Jan 2026 and Drake's Burning Bridges on 15 May 2026. Eight and a half months passed for one, nearly five for the other, before a single moment from each became the thing to recast: the look back down the pier, and the hand over the eyes at the dinner table.
• A moment filmed on a phone. The fastest start we have. Kevin Wai stopped Bulin 47 outside a restaurant in Spain, a portable speaker playing a dembow beat, and Bulin 47 freestyled on the spot (LatiNation, 8 Oct 2026). The clip went up on 2 Oct 2026, and the first widely shared AI swap, a cat in his place, came four days later.
• A clip made with AI. Rumpelstiltskin, Smalltown Boy Cats and I Wanna Love You all copy clips that were AI-made from the start. There's no star to recognise, so anyone's face or pet fits. It isn't new: the AI bunnies on a trampoline, posted on 27 Jul 2025 as if from a home security camera, passed 148.8M plays in two days, and many viewers took it for real (Know Your Meme).
• A new AI tool. Some trends start with a tool, not a clip. On 25 Mar 2025, the day OpenAI put a new image generator into ChatGPT, @GrantSlatton posted a Ghibli-style version of his family's beach photo on X, and Know Your Meme counts over 22,000 likes in a day. AI vlogs had been on YouTube since at least Sep 2024, but the earliest Bigfoot one in our data went up on TikTok on 25 May 2025, five days after Google's new video model launched.

How do TikTok dance trends start?

Rarely with choreography, in our set. Five of the trends here are built on a move, and only the two pet clips copy steps a person worked out and posted first. The Smalltown Boy cats copy a dance by @elvira.mua.music with @mr_unvrs (Instagram, 4 Aug 2026). The I Wanna Love You cat copies a person's night-selfie routine that spread on TikTok on 29 Sep 2026, two days before the cat.

The other three began as something else. Bulin 47's moves were improvised on a street. The lean into the lens in Alors on Danse was the joke in a comedy sketch. Rumpelstiltskin's tiptoe dance was one scene in an AI film about straw turning into gold. It took off as a dance only after 27 Sep 2026, a month after the film, when a TikTok edit by @musicjunkie5210 set the steps to a Riff Raff track and looped them on the beat. That edit, not the film, matched the steps to the beat most remakes use.

One song can carry two trends. Songfacts credits @zoebaptistee with a Raindance dance challenge to the song's bridge, posted on 14 Dec 2025. The AI trend that came nine months later skips that routine and recasts the pier scene from the music video instead. Old songs ride along the same way: the cats scream to Bronski Beat's 1984 song, the suited cat sings Akon and Snoop Dogg's 2006 one. The song behind each AI trend has every track and its year.

Who starts TikTok trends?

Several people, usually, and rarely the one it's named after. The name comes from the song, the artist or the story, while the push comes from whoever cuts and recasts the clip. Four chains from our set, credited the way the posts credit each other:

• Bulin 47. Bulin 47 performs. Kevin Wai stops him outside a restaurant and posts the clip (@kevincitooficial11 on TikTok, @kevin_wai07 on Instagram). @adolfo___angel posts the first widely shared AI swap on 6 Oct, and @visjanukcenaj's own-face version two days later becomes the cut most people copy. On 8 Oct, six days after the freestyle, the two artists release the song Dame Hombro.
• Rumpelstiltskin. Tatyana Tereshchenko (@stroinaya) and her AI course team make the film. @musicjunkie5210's TikTok edit adds the Riff Raff track a month later, and an edit by @6aimbot9 two days after that is the one people often credit with starting it. @maurascherfspam opens the remakes on 3 Oct with a real-life version on a playground climbing wall, in a blonde wig.
• Hotel Lobby. Quavo and Takeoff of Migos, recording as Unc & Phew, perform for COLORS. @glorify_studio's Suits swap starts the AI wave four years later, and a face swap by @pokito.ai on 28 Sep becomes the template most people follow.
• I Wanna Love You. A person's night-selfie routine comes first. @novoreel, an AI pet account, turns it into the white cat two days later. A pet-video account posts one of the first recasts with a different cat on 5 Oct, and Chelsea FC dresses the white cat in its own kit on 14 Oct.

How do trends start and spread?

Once the first AI version is up, the same few things tend to happen in the same order, most of it inside two weeks:

• Famous characters first. Of the six trends with people in the source, the first AI versions we found starred TV or film characters or an animal in five: two characters from Suits, Gandalf and Frodo, Shrek, a cat, and for Rumpelstiltskin characters from The Vampire Diaries. Our read: a face everyone knows makes the swap obvious at a glance.
• The biggest copy comes later. Raindance's first AI version went up on 27 Sep 2026. The biggest, by @artthuroficial_, went up on 2 Oct and had 50.5M plays when we read it on 16 Oct. Hotel Lobby's biggest, by @therealmeowfia, came a week after @glorify_studio's (6.1M plays on 16 Oct).
• Then your own face, or your own pet. Bulin 47's own-face version on 8 Oct became the most-copied cut. @zefosik put their own cats in the Smalltown Boy clip six days after the AI original (3.1M plays on 16 Oct).
• Then the template sites and the brands. Within two weeks of the first AI version, AI remake sites had template pages up for Raindance, Alors on Danse, Smalltown Boy Cats and I Wanna Love You. Chelsea FC joined 13 days after the white cat.
• Search peaks last. For Hotel Lobby, Alors on Danse, Raindance, Burning Bridges and Bulin 47, Google searches for the name peaked 4 to 10 days after the first AI version. For Bulin 47 and Burning Bridges, searches had already started three days before the first AI version we found, so the peak, not the first search, is what comes last. Rumpelstiltskin's peaked on 5 Oct, a day before its AI recasts took off, after the dance edits and the playground version. The two pet clips have tens of millions of plays across their versions by our estimates, but little search for their names. Our read: people find them in the feed and copy them there. How long a trend lasts after its peak has its own numbers: how long TikTok trends last.

Pick the start you like and put yourself in it

Each of these began a different way. Add a selfie, or a photo of your pet, and see a free preview still in under a minute. The full video is 100 credits ($9.90), emailed in about 5–10 minutes, and keeps the clip's own sound.

1. Bulin 47↗ Rising ≈380M views · 1 person · 15s Started as a phone video on a street. Freestyle on 2 Oct 2026, first AI swap on 6 Oct, still rising on 16 Oct. You take Bulin 47's place under the red lights while the crowd films on their phones. See yourself in it
2. Rumpelstiltskin Dance↗ Rising ≈57M views · 1–2 people · 9s Started as an AI film on Instagram. The tiptoe dance took off a month later, once TikTok edits set it to a Riff Raff track. Be the imp creeping through the hay barn, or bring a friend to play the maiden. See yourself in it
3. I Wanna Love You↗ Rising ≈55M views · 1 pet · 10s Started as an AI cat copying a person. A night-selfie routine turned into a white cat in a mustard suit two days later, then into other people's cats and dogs. One photo puts your pet in the suit by the tennis courts. See yourself in it
4. Alors on Danse↗ Rising ≈14M views · 2 people · 18s Started as a TV sketch from 2010. Sixteen years on, the tiny keyboard in a white studio is an AI trend. One of you plays the riff, the other leans right into the lens. See yourself in it
5. Raindance ≈200M views · 2 people · 28s Started as a music video from January. The pier scene sat on YouTube from January until the AI versions began on 27 Sep 2026. Two photos: one for the pier, one for the green dress. See yourself in it