Get Sturdy

About

Get Sturdy is a slang term used to describe a particular type of dance originating from New York City drill music culture that involves moving one's leg, spinning and hopping, usually set to hip hop and drill music. The dance became a viral sensation on TikTok in late 2021 and early 2022.

Origin

On September 13th, 2019, rapper Pop Smoke released "Dior" (shown below). In the song, he mentions "feeling sturdy."

In the wake of the Pop Smoke song, a dance challenge dubbed the "Woo Walk" began spreading on TikTok. It involved holding one's belt buckle, standing on one leg and moving the other to the beat of the song (examples shown below).

The dance later evolved to feature more moves and less uniform choreography, giving the dancer more freedom to move as they pleased. It appears to have picked up more viral steam on TikTok in the latter half of 2021. For example, on December 17th, 2021, TikToker camilosgarden1^[1] posted a video of his Zoom class dancing to his music, commenting they started "getting sturdy." The video gained over 1.7 million likes in five months (shown below).

Spread

On December 21st, 2021 YouTube channel "Dbswayy or the highwayy" posted a compilation from TikTok of Sturdy dances (shown below, left). On January 3rd, 2022, Urban Dictionary^[2] user xxxtentacionwife posted a definition for Sturdy that described it as a New York style of dance (shown below, right).

Over the following months, many more videos featuring the dance style began growing popular on TikTok. For example, on February 27th, user smoovestevo^[3] posted a video that gained over 1.3 million likes in three months (shown below, left). A February 11th video posted by playboidangie1^[4] gained over 2.3 million likes in three months (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References