This year, perhaps more than any other before it, social media served to both connect people and reflect society back onto itself. In 2020, no platform did that better than TikTok. Sure, people shared news and trolling on Twitter and Facebook, but it was TikTok that provided the best medium for the year’s discourse. Doctors and nurses used it to dispel Covid-19 myths. Witches used it to hex the election. Black Lives Matter supporters utilized it to share information about the movement. Teens used it to make memes for their preferred presidential candidate. Not that everything on the platform was perfect. President Trump used it as a pawn in a very confusing face-off with China. It became a haven of conspiracy theories, and also one for digital blackface. But all the while, there it was, showing people who they really are, one duet at a time. These, dear readers, are our favorite TikToks of this most tumultuous of years.
Year in Review: What WIRED learned from tech, science, culture, and more in 2020
Thank You, Mama, @greyandmama
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Look, I think it’s offensive when people say stuff like “That kid is so cute it made my ovaries tingle,” but the adorable chubby-cheeked toddler with unfailing table manners in this video is so cute that I’m actually a little surprised I didn’t spontaneously immaculately conceive. The concept of the video is simple: cherubic kid repeatedly expresses gratitude. The execution is flawless. Everyone involved deserves a treat. —Kate Knibbs
The Ugliest Bonsai, @jewslovetrees
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The sheer number and brevity of TikToks makes it possible to find the exact right one that tickles your funny bone in that one weird exact and idiosyncratic way. I have no idea why I love @jewslovetrees this much. Is it the deadpan delivery? The culturally specific, hyperbolic self-deprecation? Being incredibly passionate about something that very few people actually care about? Or are bonsai just inherently funny? I have no idea. I’ve learned so much about pine cones and tree bark and then also died laughing. —Adrienne So
Flamenco Ostriches, @kochs_corner
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TikTok is full of replicable dances, but none are quite as exquisite as this pair of ostriches flapping their feathers in a perfect flamenco. The footwork! The rhythm! The way their heads crest and fall, while shaking their flightless bodies to do the conga! Bars are closed, nightclubs shut down, but I’ll be fine as long as I have these dancing fowl on my For You page. —Arielle Pardes
Whoa. Bullseye, @justinflom
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In @justinflom’s hands, a tube of M&M’s becomes the vehicle for the greatest TikTok prank of the year. It involves a hot dog, which fits so perfectly, so stealthily, inside the cylinder, and it requires real suavity to pull off. Watch the face of his victim. At the moment—unbelievably delayed—of contact, it registers the situational wrongness. Survival instincts are triggered; the throat constricts in self-protection. I’ve never seen betrayal this close up, this raw. —Jason Kehe
This Is My Impression of Summer 2020, @jtfirstman
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Honestly, picking a video by Jordan Firstman as a favorite of 2020 is cheating. He’s already become a favorite of everyone from Ariana Grande to British Vogue. But I still remember the moment I saw my first installment of his “Impressions” series, one where he imitated what it must be like to be the summer of '20. (“I just feel like I don’t know who I am right now, and everyone is mad at me …”) It popped up in the middle of my own lockdown summer, and for those 30-ish seconds, not being able to go to Coney Island or float in and out of packed restaurants and beaches didn’t seem so bad. —Angela Watercutter
About Y’all’s Favorite “Statistics,” @rynnstar
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I loved many TikToks this year, and most of them were cheery animal content, but I can only recite one from end to end: Erynn Chambers’ original jingle about bad-faith statistical arguments made to explain away a racist policing system. It begins, jauntily, “Black neighborhoods are overpoliced, so of course they have higher rates of crime!” and ends with a cheerful entreaty for bigots to “shut up.” TikTokkers duetted it, made horn remixes of it, pole danced to it. It’s TikTok at its best and most dystopian at the same time, and it lives in my head rent-free. —Emma Grey Ellis
Everybody vs. Racists, @ns_king19
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Generally speaking, Trick Daddy’s club anthem “Let’s Go” isn’t generally considered a protest song. Yet, in the deft hands of @ns_king19 it becomes a rallying cry for anyone pushing back against oppression. In the days after the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, many American cities erupted in protest, backed by activists from all backgrounds, from the Amish to #MeToo. It was a call to action that @ns_king19’s clip sums up perfectly. —Angela Watercutter
If I Hear of Parties … I Will Snitch, @chinforshort
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The scene starts with a college student staring intently at the camera and threatening to tell on anyone who throws a party in his dorm in violation of pandemic restrictions. But what’s the guy doing behind him? A couple seconds in, it becomes clear: He’s a Lakers-loving Greek chorus. At first he’s just repeating variations on what @chinforshort is saying: He will rat you out. But gradually, things get faster paced, more lyrical, and way more creative. There’s whistling as pretty as any songbird. There’s the best reference to the movie Ratatouille I have ever heard. There’s the line “If you think about it, online university is really just the premium version of DeVry,” which makes me cackle every single time. I am dying to know if anyone dared cross them. —Megan Greenwell