About

Dancing Wolf refers to a low-res 3D-modeled wolf dancing to an electronic dance music (EDM) remix of "Teşkilat Türküsü" by Turkish singer Mevlütcan Kaplan, which originally appeared among Turkish internet users in the early 2020s. The animation resurfaced in mid-2023 on TikTok as an exploitable meme format, becoming the subject of parodies and ironic memes over the following months in which people tried to replicate the wolf's dance moves.

Origin

The earliest known post of the dancing wolf meme was uploaded to YouTube^[1] on January 9th, 2021, by user @greenscreen8922. The video (shown below) features the animal dancing to a remixed version of the song "Teşkilat Türküsü" by Turkish singer Mevlütcan Kaplan. The post did not garner significant engagement, accumulating over 220 views and eight likes in two years.

Spread

The green-screen dancing wolf became popularized around November 2023 after it was paired with the German song "Komm Tanzen – Ich will Nicht." The earliest combination of the dancing wolf and German electronic music was posted on November 28th, 2023, by TikTok^[2] user @mazur4ik_, who recreated the wolf's dance moves (shown below, left). The video amassed more than 13 million plays and 3 million likes in three months.

On November 30th, TikTok^[3] user @musatovnikita then uploaded another video recreating the wolf's choreography (shown below, right), which garnered over 3.6 million likes in a similar timeframe.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References