About

Animal Outlines is a TikTok trend in which an animal will have a white outline showing where it will ultimately be in a video, then the animal will come on screen and sync up with the white outline as the video pauses at that exact moment. Animal Outlines have been used in conjunction with an audio sound in which a repeating striking noise is heard before making a click that syncs up to when the animal is in the outline. Other non-animal versions of objects lining up with a white outline also became a trend on the platform in the following months.

Origin

The first time an animal outline video was posted with the accompanying audio music was on March 1st, 2022, by the TikTok account Wrinkle the Duck,^[1] and it featured the eponymous Wrinkle in various short clips with the music being used as the transition point. The sound and video were quickly popularized, with the original getting over 57,000 likes in two months (shown below).

Spread

The audio^[2] posted by Wrinkle the Duck was used to create over 2,650 videos in a similar style to the original with various animals being used to create the outline and follow-through. As the trend began to spread, the use cases for the audio also began to expand, as seen in the TikTok posted on March 8th, 2022, by the account MaxBooz^[3] in which cars drifting were used in place of animals, gaining 98,000 likes in two months (shown below).

A month later, the trend had fully embraced non-animals being used as the focus, as seen with the official TikTok account for the indie game Sky: Children of the Light, creating a short clip meme compilation^[4] using the audio and white outlines on April 23rd, 2022, earning 127,000 likes in three weeks (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References