Jimmy Fallon Slammed For Snubbing Original Black TikTok Dancers In Controversial Bit

Jimmy Fallon Slammed For Co-opting TikTok Users' Content In Controversial  Bit | HuffPost

A recent segment on “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon” is making a lot of people cringe.

On Friday, TikTok star Addison Rae appeared on the late night talk show for a segment called “Addison Rae Teaches Jimmy Eight TikTok Dances,” in which she performed several viral dances from the social media platform.

Unfortunately, the show failed to credit the lesser-known TikTok users who created the choreography, many of whom are Black.

The clip of Rae’s segment went viral over the weekend, with many people on Twitter expressing their annoyance and disgust over the lack of credit and exposure.

 

  

  

  

  

  

  

 

 Some Twitter users even posted the TikTok handles of the creators.

 

 

 

 

BuzzFeed also compiled a list of the creators. A clip of the segment that was uploaded to the talk show’s YouTube account also includes a list of the creators, but it is unclear if the information was recently added due to the controversy surrounding it. 

The show’s original tweet featuring the segment does not include any credit.

 

 

HuffPost reached out to “The Tonight Show” for comment, but did not receive an immediate response.

 “The View” co-host Sunny Hostin was vocal about her disappointment in the segment. She tweeted at Fallon on Monday, calling the oversight “a miss.

“Let’s give credit to the black creators,” Hostin wrote.

 

 

This is not the first time Fallon has made this misstep. In March 2020, “The Tonight Show” did a similar segment with TikTok star Charli D’Amelio demonstrating viral moves to Fallon.

Before D’Amelio was on “The Tonight Show” she was mistaken as being the creator of TikTok’s viral “Renegade” dance. She was not, and merely popularized it with her then-26 million followers, according to The New York Times. The dance was actually choreographed by 14-year-old Jalaiah Harmon. 

Harmon told the Times she wasn’t exactly pleased with more mainstream TikTokers co-opting her work.

 “I was happy when I saw my dance all over, but I wanted credit for it,” Harmon told the paper in February 2020.


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