The Brief: A new TikTok trend has emerged in which teenagers perform interpretive dances to voicemails left by their ex-boyfriends, ex-girlfriends, and ex-friends.

Bluesquiggle
DEEP DIVE

Teenagers are getting over their exes and raising awareness about relationship abuse in the most Gen Z way possible: through ironic interpretive dance TikToks. In a recent trend, teenage TikTokers, mostly young women, have been repurposing voicemails left by their ex-SO’s and ex-friends as the background to TikTok videos.

The juxtaposition of the silly dance moves with the harsh and often vulgar messages from alleged exes playing in the background is reminiscent of the “reading hate comments in ASMR” YouTube video genre.

The typical ex’s voicemail dance TikTok shows someone with a neutral expression on their face doing a series of dance moves such as The Woah and The Clock Woah while their ex yells, cries, and swears, in the background. These meme videos are darkly humorous and somewhat cathartic. The comments sections for these videos are filled with people dragging these exes, and showing support for the video’s creator.

TikToker @trapmoneybella’s videos of her dancing to “voicemails from my cheating ex boyfriend” have garnered hundreds of thousands of likes on TikTok and have received over a million views on a repost to Twitter. In an interview through DM’s, she explained how she got the idea to make these videos: “I was just clearing through my voicemails and I came across it and decided to make it into something that people could laugh about, making it into a positive.”In response to how much these videos seemed to have resonated with audiences, she said “I think a lot of people related because it’s something that sadly happens to a lot of people especially younger people, since they tend to be less mature.”

Dancing To My Ex’s Voicemails

Content warning: some of these voicemails contain explicit language and abusive content.