The latest TikTok trend has parents dancing like it's the 80s

TikTok can add a new skill to its resume: disco time machine.

The social platform normally populated by an endless list of Gen Z-ers dancing—usually in short, rehearsed and perfected choreographies—has recently been filled with the energy of a surprising demographic: their Gen X parents.

In the viral videos, parents are encouraged by their adult children to dance like they would have done to the catchy 1984 song “Smalltown Boy” by the British synthpop band Bronski Beat. Most of the posts are tagged with #momdancechallenge, #daddancechallenge or #80sdancechallenge and have garnered tens of millions of views.

The reactions were perhaps unexpected, because instead of laughing, the videos are cool, like really cool, and serve as a portal into a different era: when dancing was more improvised and spontaneous, when people felt the beat and found the rhythm organically and moved without the constraints of a vertical aspect ratio.

When Valerie Martinez, 23, asked her mother Yeanne Velazquez, 58, to join, the challenge had not yet gone viral and they had not prepared for it at all. “I didn't even play her the song beforehand,” Martinez said in a phone interview with her mother this week. But Martinez was sure Velazquez would deliver, because her mother is always Dancing, she said.

Velazquez recalled the song, saying she was about 19 when the song was popular and went dancing in the one or two clubs in Puerto Rico, where she lived. She now lives in Florida with her daughter.

The flood of positive comments on her daughter's post, which has more than 12 million views and nearly a million likes, is encouraging, Velazquez said. What perhaps sets this trend apart is the overwhelmingly encouraging responses on TikTok and Instagram.

It's a welcome change from the boring tradition of making fun of those over 40 online, as exemplified by the awkward debate between “OK Boomer” and “Millennial.”

“I didn't expect them to actually be able to move like that though!” wrote one commenter. “I swear I saw a glimpse of younger faces in their smiles for a split second. Very heartwarming.”

“I can't say if I just love watching parents teleport or if I just love watching other people dance,” said another.

There were also numerous requests in the comments to see photos of the parents from that bygone era, and several complied, including Velazquez, who said she had no qualms at all about sharing the photos.

When asked if trends like these help bridge generational gaps online, Martinez said, “1,000 percent.”

Giselle DeLaney, 28, and her mother Sandy Cervantes, 51, spontaneously decided to attend and said this week they were overwhelmed by the reception. Cervantes' video has more than 15 million views and about 1.5 million likes on TikTok.

“It was just a happy moment for both of us,” said DeLaney, who had given birth to her first baby just days before and was filming the video while her mother was visiting her in Maryland from Florida. The circumstances made the reception extra special and, as DeLaney put it, “brought a lot of positivity to our family.”

“You can see on their faces how they suddenly return to a beautiful time when they were younger and enjoyed their lives to the fullest,” she said of the parents in the videos.

Social media, especially Instagram and TikTok, are of course considered the domain of youth, so these viral videos and other popular accounts that spotlight older people have a chance to serve as a poignant reminder that everyone was young once, doing things young people do, and that everyone—yes, even you—will grow older, if you're lucky.

Late last year, a video on the account cindeemindy showed her grooving to the beat of Strafe's '80s song “Set It Off”; it was viewed millions of times and shared on TikTok and Instagram to great acclaim. The Old Gays, an account of a longtime friend group of four men over the age of 65 who live in the California desert, gained 11 million followers, turning them into unexpected influencers (or “grandfluencers,” as they're sometimes called). They also dance a lot on their page and share photos of themselves from their youth.

Maybe in a few decades, today's TikTok dancers will revive their sophisticated moves for their kids to post on the social network of the day.

“We watch videos of ourselves dancing — or our kids doing it with us — and then it all comes full circle,” DeLaney said. “We think, 'You know what? That's who I was and that's who I am now.' And if someone asks me in 20 years, I'll be a different person, but I'll remember who I was.”