A seemingly gravity-defying dance move is the latest viral trend to take social media by storm.
Teenagers and K-pop celebrities alike are taking on the “Slickback” challenge, which is performed to multi-genre music artist, DJ and producer Lakim’s single “A Pimp Named Slickback”.
It all started with a TikTok video uploaded on October 15 by a teenager who, while kicking his way across the ground, appeared to be hovering or gliding.
The original video has amassed more than 225 million views and 25 million likes, and has more than 144,000 comments – many of which express how mind-blowing the move is.
“I swear I saw bro floating,” one popular comment says.
Lee Hyo-cheol, the South Korean teenager who uploaded the video, was not the person who invented the move – he modified a dance move created by YouTuber and TikTokker Jubi2fye in early 2022. The “Jubi Slide”, as it is known, looks somewhat like a sideways moonwalk.
The new move popularised by the Slickback challenge focuses more on the striking out of the heels than the sliding, “moonwalk” movement.
“People said if you jump on your heels, it looks as if you are slightly floating. Originally, you are supposed to drag your feet while doing the dance but for me, my feet look like they are floating,” Lee, a third-grade middle school student, said in an interview with the YouTube channel Recent Olympics.
The term #slickback has since taken on a life of its own on social media. Some have filmed themselves doing it on football fields, as the short, green grass makes the gliding look smoother. Others appear to be using it for team building.
Some have simply put the viral tune over videos of their pets running on slippery floors.
While the instructions offered in many of the available tutorials appear simple – “strike a foot out, jump back and switch to another foot”– it is anything but. Practice, it appears, is key for the move to look perfect.
Still, if you never manage to glide effortlessly across the ground like so many others, do not feel too bad – K-pop idols, such as members of the groups Le Sserafim and Twice, are failing at the challenge too.