About

Jerk Or Die refers to a dance trend on TikTok where one or a number of people attempt to jerk in front of the camera under the hypothetical scenario that they die if they fail to do the dance, often with comedic judgments about their jerking presented via on-screen text. The trend became popular on TikTok in November 2021. "Jerking" originates from the rap group New Boyz in 2009.

Origin

On May 30th, 2009, New Boyz released a music video for their song "You're A Jerk" (shown below, left). The music video features a dance called the "jerk" or "jerkin' it" where you kick your legs out straight one at a time similar to skipping backward in time with the music, accompanied by various lunging and kicking moves. Jerking became very popular that year, inspiring a trend (example shown below, right).

In late November 2021 TikTokers began jerking to an instrumental version of the song by New Boyz. On November 25th, TikToker^[1] @lexx_bee posted a video showing a woman teaching someone from Gen Z how to jerk, gaining over 19 million views in just under three weeks (shown below, left). On the same day, TikToker^[2] @taniaberrys posted a video captioned "If I was held at gunpoint and told to jerk or die… tell my family I love them" showing her failing to jerk, gaining over 5.5 million views in the same span of time. It is unknown if this is the first video in the trend.

Spread

The trend spread under numerous Original Sounds on TikTok^[3][4][5] throughout November and December 2021. On December 5th, 2021, TikToker @tenayas_msjenny posted a video where a teacher named Mr. Lemay out-jerks a group of students, gaining over 36.3 million views in a week (shown below). The video went significantly viral and was reported on by HITC.^[6]

On December 6th, 2021, TikToker Kurtis Connor posted a video rating a number of friends' jerks, gaining over 1.9 million views in a week (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References