Tokyo, Japan.
Zhouzhou Agency, idol base.
"Hey, Sister Taozi! Come look at this!"
Tao Guo had just finished training and opened the apartment door when her teammate Ye Nai called her over.
Only after entering the inner room did she realize—
Ye Nai and her other two teammates, Cai Yan and Ren Mei, were huddled together in one room scrolling through Douyin.
These girls!
They had only just finished rehearsing, and with a concert coming up this weekend, instead of getting proper rest, they were gathered here scrolling through Douyin!
As the captain of the idol girl group KING, Tao Guo really wanted to give these members a good scolding!
"Don't rush, Sister Taozi. Look at this!"
Ye Nai excitedly held her phone out in front of Tao Guo.
In the video, a high school boy and a high school girl were performing. One played the piano, while the other... seemed to be playing the cello?
"Can-Can?"
Tao Guo narrowed her eyes and read the song title from the description.
Tao Guo didn't understand. What was so interesting about this?
When she told them to study more fancams of their seniors' performances, they never listened. Yet now they were gathered here watching people play instrumental music?
"Listen, listen!"
Ye Nai stuck out her tongue and tapped play.
As the light piano notes and cheerful cello began to ring out—
A breezy melody began dancing through the piece.
Tao Guo's eyes immediately lit up.
"Hahaha, interesting, right?" Ye Nai beamed.
"It's interesting! Wow, this song is really interesting!"
Tao Guo couldn't help praising it.
As a girl group member, Tao Guo was also occasionally responsible for composing and choreographing some of the group's material.
A tune this fun struck straight at her heart.
These two people called Moonlight and Cat must be a very interesting young couple in real life too!
Beside her, Cai Yan had already closed her eyes, her body beginning to move unconsciously.
It was an idol's instinctive reaction. Whenever they heard a song they found especially interesting, their bodies would naturally begin improvising a dance.
Many hugely popular choreographies were born this way.
"We were just discussing how fun it would be to choreograph a dance for this song!" Ren Mei said with a smile.
"That's not a bad idea."
Tao Guo thought for a moment. "Hey, how about we make a Douyin video using this as the BGM?"
"Sure! That's exactly what I wanted to say when I called you over!" Ye Nai raised both hands in agreement.
For KING, this wasn't the first time they had done something like this.
Thanks to the girl group's immense popularity, their official Douyin account had over four million followers. Whenever a short-video BGM became popular, they would make a video following the trend.
As long as the video did not involve profit, there would be no copyright issues.
They got to it immediately!
The four idols had just finished training and had not even showered yet when they hurried back to the dance studio.
They set a phone up on a stand.
The four began improvising choreography to the melody of Can-Can.
At one moment, the girls lifted one leg and hopped around like cripples; the next, they made cute faces at the camera.
Very quickly, an absurdly catchy dance with little technical difficulty but immense joy was complete!
On the afternoon of the second day after Moonlight and Cat's "Can-Can" exploded on Douyin—
Many self-media creators and journalists suddenly discovered—
A new trend had appeared on Douyin!
Many influencers had begun using "Can-Can" as their BGM while performing an incredibly addictive dance!
And the source of it all was unexpectedly a Douyin video posted by Japan's massively popular girl group, KING!
In this Douyin video, the four idol girls swayed their bodies and performed an extremely addictive dance to a cheerful tune.
As the music grew faster and faster, the girls' movements grew faster as well.
In the end, unable to keep up with the rhythm, the idols burst into laughter, their arms and legs flailing in every direction.
Ye Nai covered her face demurely with one hand while hurriedly stepping over to stop the recording.
And thus, art was born!
Aaaaaah, so cute, so cute!!
Hahahaha, Ye Nai is way too adorable!
I saw this song on my feed yesterday too. I didn't expect the girls to choreograph a dance for it so quickly!
KING has really made it. They actually got to ride Moonlight and Cat's popularity.
I have a feeling that Douyin will be taken over by this song tomorrow!
Witnessing history! A whole bunch of people will be doing dance covers soon, hahaha!
.
In just three short hours, this video from girl group KING received 1.3 million likes!
Moonlight and Cat's original video also surpassed one million likes alongside it.
Very soon, major influencers began imitating it one after another.
By that evening—
The Can-Can dance challenge had shot straight to third place on Douyin's trending chart!
And the reason it became so popular was also tied to how fun the dance itself was.
This dance greatly challenged people's social anxiety. They had to "throw caution to the wind," constantly imitating a cripple and making faces at the camera.
If they could add lyrics in time with the rhythm, something like "la la, la la la la~," the effect would be even better.
And as the music of "Can-Can" grew faster and faster, so did the dance, until the dancer finally cracked up laughing and the video came to an end.
The cuter and sweeter-looking the influencer, the more unexpectedly effective the video became.
Thus, dance bloggers, music bloggers, beauty bloggers, and even suggestive influencers all began trying it.
And it unexpectedly sparked another battle as well.
Damn right! This is the kind of dance people should be doing! Fuck those suggestive dances every day, I've been sick of them for ages! We finally have a normal, good-looking dance!
Exactly! Do you have to be suggestive to grab attention? Isn't something wholesome and cute like "Can-Can" better?!
Douyin finally did something normal for once. Before, they'd always use some godawful song like "Hey hey hey, you're my baby~" for suggestive dances. It made me sick just listening to it!
Sob, sob, we really have to thank Moonlight and Cat. Without them, where would we get so many cute girls to watch?
Many Douyin users had long despised the platform for being flooded with mindless, low-quality viral songs!
But what was disgusting about Douyin was that users could mark a video as not interested, but they could not mark a BGM as not interested.
So many people were forced to hear them while scrolling through videos!
It was like being force-fed shit!
Whenever they heard self-media creators introducing some supposedly hit god-tier song and boasting about how famous it was on Douyin—
Netizens went numb.
Was your song famous because it sounded good?
Wasn't it just because that idiot Douyin kept pushing it and pushing it!
Therefore, seeing such a pleasant song, paired with a dance that was cute and not suggestive, made netizens unbelievably happy.
As "Can-Can" blew up, Moonlight and Cat's account followers also surged directly to 320,000.
Many fans left comments asking to see Brother Moonlight and Cat-chan make a video like this too, believing that the original creators performing the dance themselves would definitely have a special charm.
Lin Tian put down his phone and glanced at Gan Yan Yu, who was sitting on the sofa.
"Don't look at me."
Gan Yan Yu pouted and waved her raised index finger in front of Lin Tian.
"I absolutely will not dance!"
Before you continue