Mbappé Dancing / Dance Battle

About

Mbappé Dancing, also known as Small Mbappé Dancing, Mbappé Dance, Mbappé Dance Battle or Mbappé and Neymar Dance Battle, refers to a low-quality video of a small and frail lookalike of French footballer Kylian Mbappé dancing to the Brazilian song "Tubarão Te Amo" by DJ LK da Escócia & Tchakabum & Mc Ryan SP. In late 2022, the video trended due to the Brazilian Kid Dance Battles on TikTok that used the same song. TikTokers set the creepy video of the small Mbappé dancing to the song, satirically comparing it to a video of Brazilian footballer Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior dancing in the locker room. The meme became highly prevalent in late 2022, coinciding with the FIFA World Cup in Qatar and the French team led by Mbappé moving to the semi-finals.

Origin

It is currently unknown where the original Mbappé lookalike video was uploaded, however, it's speculated that the individual recorded is of Egyptian origin. The earliest known posting of the video was by the Arabic-speaking Instagram^[1] page ikhan_tv1 on June 29th, 2021, who wrote in the caption, "مبابي فاليورو," which translates to, "Mbappe for Euro." Over the course of a year and a half, the video received over 650 likes (shown below).

Spread

Starting in May 2022, the video was used in memes on YouTube in which the clip was referenced alongside Mbappé's contract extension. For instance, on May 24th, 2022, the YouTube^[2] channel ANYTIME FOOTBALL posted a video that received roughly 468,000 views in seven months (shown below).

On June 3rd, 2022, the TikTok^[3] page cymru0 posted the video of the Mbappé lookalike dancing, gaining roughly 1.4 million plays and 71,900 likes in six months (shown below, left). Months later, the video became increasingly viral on TikTok due to a dance battle trend that pinned many footballer lookalikes against each other. The trend predominantly started in late November, coinciding with the 2022 FIFA World Cup. For instance, on November 27th, 2022, TikToker^[4] .mqrtin9 posted a video of Neymar having a dance battle against the Mbappé lookalike, gaining roughly 4.8 million plays and 580,500 likes in 15 days (shown below, right).

On December 2nd, 2022, TikToker^[5] r._.t08 posted a Messi lookalike versus Mbappé lookalike dance battle, gaining roughly 923,300 plays and 153,600 likes in ten days (shown below, left). On December 9th, 2022, TikToker^[6] philip_ofo posted a video that joked about the oversaturation of Mbappé dance battle videos on his "For You" page, gaining roughly 2.5 million plays and 372,400 likes in three days (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References