What is the ‘woke' Macarena? And what makes it ‘woke'?
Sam Morris has had videos blow up on TikTok before, but he still didn't expect this to happen.
In the weeks since he posted choreography to a snippet of the song 'Take a Sexy Picture of Me' by Irish singer CMAT, the dance he created has emerged as a full-fledged trend. Creators are using the moves on social media, and crowds are performing them at CMAT's concerts.
'It's not my first, first rodeo, but I wasn't expecting it,' said Morris, 37, a writer and content creator based in Brighton, England.
The actual dance is simple and straightforward. Following along with the words of CMAT's song, ('I did the butcher / I did the baker / I did the home and the family maker / I did schoolgirl fantasies,') Morris's dance has participants miming chopping and baking on their way, hopefully, to TikTok fame.
The dance kicked around for several weeks, but took on new relevance when it was given a catchy (and, for some, confusing) nickname: the Woke Macarena.
CMAT, an emerging star, released 'Take a Sexy Picture of Me' last month. She said on social media that she wrote the song, which is about the different phases you go through as a young woman, after receiving a flood of 'nasty comments' on her physical appearance.
Morris's dance made the song a TikTok hit, with scores of people attempting to recreate it in their own videos, many of which had captions with proclamations about how this will be a 'CMAT summer.'
Reached by email, CMAT, whose full name is Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson, said when she first saw the dance, she thought Morris may have misunderstood the song's message about how a woman contorts herself in various ways to gain acceptance.
'I thought it was a great dance, and I also thought it was hilariously incongruous with the message of the song,' CMAT said, adding later, 'I think he's getting the song and doubling down on the irony of bodily performance.'
Whether or not the dance slightly missed the message of the song, it has taken hold of creators and celebrities alike, with people like Julia Fox, Lola Young and Noah Cyrus giving it their best effort.
CMAT has done it as well, calling it a 'hee hee ha ha' moment.
A post shared by cmat (@cmatbaby)
There's no clear answer as to how the dance got its catchy nickname, with its reference to a 1990s dance craze, beyond a steadfast belief that it was first called that on the social platform X. But Morris, and some of the creators who have emulated his dance, have their own theories as to why it has stuck.
'What CMAT sings about is very much like strong female empowerment, so that and then a clearly very gay man creating a dance for it — it's giving woke,' Morris said.
Katherine Pfost, a 33-year-old in New York City who made a video doing the dance, said she thinks the woke label stems from the lyrics of the song itself, which focus on the struggle of the female experience. And the use of Macarena is a nod to the simplicity of the choreography.
'I think people probably gave it that name because it's an easy dance to do, like the 'Macarena,' and the song has that same earworm type of quality, and then the lyrics are very powerful,' Pfost said.
Jessica Chisnall, 24, who lives in England and did a video of the dance before it was given a name, said she thinks calling it 'woke' may have originally come from a place of negativity, but it has now been embraced by the people dancing along.
'I've seen people from all walks of life doing the dance, and it's really nice that men, women, nonbinary people can all relate to the song and do the dance,' Chisnall said.
Despite gaining traction on TikTok, CMAT said she didn't think the dance alone would change her career, although it may lead to other opportunities down the road.
'I don't necessarily think that my song being famous equates to me being famous because of the extremely, extraordinarily ephemeral nature of something like TikTok,' she said.
Morris, who loves the message of the song, said when creating the choreography he was conscious of the fact that he's a man and that the song is from a woman's perspective.
'I'm just happy to be involved,' he said. 'I'm happy to just be here.'
Whether it can have the lasting power of the original Macarena remains to be seen. Pfost said she thinks the fact that the dance doesn't match up perfectly with the message of the song is a strength, not a weakness.
'There is something to be said for taking a song or a message like that and making it joyful and fun and distilling it down to an easy-to-do dance that's fun for people to do,' she said. 'I think that gives it more reach and more power.'
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