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search trends & what they indicate

3 cups

Blueberries

3 cups

Flour

Fortnite

2 tsp.

Oil

1½ cups

Butter

K-Pop Bands

Childish Gambino

Man

U.

​Cincinnati Bengals, Baltimore Ravens 

BlocBoy JB

BlocBoy JB

Drake

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Worldwide. 07/01/17 - 11/1/18. Web Search.

The "Shoot" Dance rose in popularity at a local level among Memphis area college football players before catching on nationally and eventually, internationally. The connection between rap music and sports is one that was important to the rise of the "Shoot" and is a connection ripe for future research. Popular athletes like Odell Beckham Jr. (New York Giants) and Jesse Lingard (Manchester United) have been connected to the spread of viral dances before.

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It is worth mentioning the influence of rappers like Drake who not only is connected to the sports world through his friendships with athletes like Odell Beckham Jr., but is also a brand ambassador for the Toronto Rappers NBA team. Drake's influence in the growth of viral dances has been well-documented, so it is no surprise that the dance gains more popularity internationally shortly after he is filmed performing the dance at parties and in the "Look Alive" music video. 

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The "Shoot" dance's first major peak in search queries occurs after it is picked up by K-Pop groups such as SEVENTEEN Boo SeokSoon and WINNER between March-April 2018. It is hard to capture exactly how they first learned of the dance, but it can be inferred that Drake's international influence, coupled with the rising influence of dance choreographers, contributed to the spread of the dance in Korea. The connection between American rap music, urban streetwear, and Korean youth culture is worthy of future research. As is, the influence of dance choreographers in the digital age. The spread of the "Shoot" dance to Korea, marks the first major time that the attribution of the dance is taken away from BlocBoy JB. As the dance became popular in Korea, it became referred to as the #EverydayChallenge by fans after the K-pop group  WINNER performs it in the video for their song "Everyday." 

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The "Shoot" dance's popularity peaked in May 2018 after it was featured in the popular video game, Fortnite. This is when the "Shoot" dance truly became a viral sensation. Unfortunately, it was also the time when the attribution of the dance to BlocBoy JB became largely erased. It eventually got to the point that the ‘Shoot’ dance was called the ‘Fortnite Dance’ or the ‘Hype Dance’ with no attribution to Blocboy JB. Due to the influence of Fortnite, three out of five of the top search results related to the "Shoot" dance reference the game. Fortnite has a history of co-opting music and dances from rappers without crediting them. Rappers like Chance The Rapper have criticized Fortnite publicly for charging players to buy dances for their avatars to use in the game, but not paying the artists who the dances were co-opted from in the first place. Fortnite, now the considered the most important game on Earth, has cleared over $1 billion in sales since its September 2017 release. The makers of the game have yet to compensate any musician for using their dances as "emotes" in the game. In November 2018, Brooklyn-based rapper 2-Milly filed a lawsuit against Fortnite, claiming that the video game maker's "Swipe It" dance emote is a direct copy of the Milly Rock, a viral dance that he created. Even BlocBoy JB has come out against the game. In September 2018, he called out Fortnite for co-opting the "Shoot" dance for the game's "Hype" dance emote. 

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Unfortunately, for the originators of viral dance moves like the "Milly Rock" or the "Shoot," the legal conversation in the United States on appropriation has not evolved enough to completely protect their moves from becoming co-opted. According to lawyer Jessica Meiselman in an article for Noisey, "The US Copyright statute expressly designates choreography as a form of expression that is protectable, but not individual movements. An emote is comparable to a note from a song—it is only protectable if used in connection with other elements to create a larger compilation."There is a need for future research on the evolution of intellectual property as it relates to social media trends like viral dance moves in the digital age. 

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