Justina's Writing Corner

Jalaiah Harmon is a Black teenager. When she was fourteen years old, she choreographed the dance; Renegade, which was one of the most viral dances on TikTok. Millions of people danced Renegade. The dance blew up in 2019. Charli D’Amelio, a whistle TikToker saw the dance and posted herself dancing it. She did not credit the choreographer Jalaiah in any format, like tagging. However, Amelio gained fame and money from it. She made millions of dollars, while Jalaiah, the creator, was nameless for a long period of time. 

In March 2021, Addison Rae, a TikTok influencer, went on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon”, which is a prestigious weekly show. Addison performed eight viral dances during the show and announce to teach Jimmy Fallon the dances. However, these dances are not original from Addison and she also did not credit the original creators of the dances, which many were black, in any way or form. 

The producers of the show didn’t acknowledge the fact that dance credits is integral to TikTok. People similar to Rae or Charli D’Amelio will get famous and popular. Professional choreographers who are looking for people to choreograph new moves may not find any. 

Dancers like Jalaiah Harmon believe that dance is an expression of their identity.  It is how they live and navigate the world. A lot of their identities lie in what it means to be black in America. They use dance as a way to externalize these identity experiences, to talk about the things that they don’t always want us to talk about or that are hard for people outside of our community to understand.

Jalaiah Harmon takes hip-hop, ballet, lyrical, jazz, tumbling, and tap classes after school at a dance studio in the Atlanta suburbs. She is also studying viral dances, collaborating with peers, and posting original choreography online. She loves the fact that other people love her dance and dance it on TikTok, however, she would like to be credited. Like she said, “I was happy when I saw my dance all over,” “But I wanted credit for it.”

As we see throughout the internet, people are not crediting the creators for what they did. They are “stealing” from black teenagers. We should think about whether this is the way we want to continue.

Prior influences had also borrowed ideas and dances from other people. Like the Beatles. The opening lines of “Do You Want To Know A Secret” were borrowed from “Snow White”, a Disney movie. However, they credited the movie to tell others who the creator was. 

As generations grow, we are not even doing what the previous generations are doing. We should be doing better than them, however, we are going backward. 

Should we continue this trend and not credit the original creators? Or should we all follow our morals and credit the creators?