Mantis Dance

The meaning of “Mantis Dance”

The “mantis dance” is a dance that became popular through a dance video posted on TikTok, in which both arms are swung up and down with bent elbows.

As of the end of 2023, the number of views of videos with the hashtag “#MantisDance” exceeded 450 million. It was ranked 8th in the “SNS Buzzword Ranking” selected by the SNS Manager Training Course (※ 1).

Origin and etymology of “Mantis Dance”

The trend began with a short video posted in May 2023 by TikTok user “Unpopular Junior.”
The person dancing is not the poster himself, but his “junior,” whose name is also in the user's name. (※2) Currently, the “junior,” Tairi, has also created his own personal account.

When the unpopular junior was posting a video of his junior, the dance received a comment saying, “It looks like a praying mantis lol.” In response, the junior posted a video of himself dancing, which went viral and the dance came to be called the “praying mantis dance.” As of December 2023, the video has been viewed 1.7 million times.

The song used in the video is a mysterious high-pitched song with Japanese lyrics, which was also posted on TikTok and is based on a Japanese cover video posted in February 2023 by popular creator “Came,” who has over 480,000 followers (※3). The song covered is “Waiting for Love” by Avicii, a popular Swedish artist who passed away suddenly at the young age of 28 in April 2018.

Cam first posted a short video as a regular Japanese cover, and then posted a fast-forwarded video.

The latter is used in the “Mantis Dance” video, which gives the audio a strangely high-pitched tone.
As a result of the buzz surrounding “Mantis Dance,” the number of streams of the original song, “Waiting for Love,” also skyrocketed. It even reached number one on various streaming sites. In response to this popularity, a lyric video with a Japanese translation of “Waiting for Love” was posted as an official video for Universal Music Japan International in June 2023 (※4).

Utilizing the “Mantis Dance”

Various entertainers, athletes, and famous people have posted short videos of themselves performing the “Praying Mantis Dance” online.

Many of these videos are posted on TikTok as well as YouTube Shorts.

Here is an example (titles omitted below):

・Maki Goto (Artist)
“Maki Goto tries out the popular mantis dance on TikTok”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjCM08wK8NM

・Chiba Jets Funabashi (professional basketball team)
“Mantis Dance: Sato and Rashid are serious! Sumipon collaboration”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZENc0iuLd4

・Miyano Mamoru (voice actor/artist) & Takagi Shun (actor)
https://www.tiktok.com/@miyanomamoru_pr/video/7293520747484433682

and so on.

In addition, the unit “REAL AKIBA BOYZ,” whose members are all otaku and professional dancers, also uploaded a video of the “Kamakiri Dance.” This video is indeed a “Kamakiri Dance” video, but it has an original story based on the Japanese lyrics of Cam's “Waiting for Love,” and halfway through, it becomes a mysterious video that gives the impression of a grand theme.

→ “A professional dancer tries out the popular mantis dance on TikTok”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTtQweFmtiY

*1
“SNS Buzzword Ranking” by the Japan Web Analytics Association
Announcement date: October 17, 2023
https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000446.000026172.html

*2
Video posted by Mr. Unpopular Junior
https://www.tiktok.com/@dyu95ekzjba0/video/7233409522625170689

*3
Cover song video by Cam
https://www.tiktok.com/@came_music/video/7199577971940756737

※Four
◢ Japanese Translation ◤ Avicii – Waiting For Love