About

Philly Muslim Dancing or Philly's Best Tangin Cyphers is a viral video by YouTuber LevelUpPhilly1 in which several people in a group from Philadelphia perform a dance known as tanging, including a Muslim woman wearing a hijab. The clip was originally posted in April 2023 and went viral in August 2024 on TikTok, inspiring reactions and memes. The Muslim woman seen tanging went particularly viral that month for her dance moves, inspiring reactions, memes and recreations of her dance.

Origin

On April 1st, 2023, YouTuber^[1] LevelUpPhilly1 posted a video titled "Level Up Forever – Philly's Best Tangin Cyphers" in which a group of people, presumably from Philly, tang, garnering over 130,000 views in a year. At the 2:20 mark, a woman who appears to be Muslim tangs (shown below).

Spread

In August 2024, TikTokers began reuploading the clip of the Muslim woman tanging with additional captions commenting on her dance moves, with some likening one of her moves to air bending from Avatar: The Last Airbender.

For example, on August 9th, 2024, TikTokers^[2][3] @hxauntx and @shaungotjokes posted videos reacting to the dances, the latter recreating them, garnering over 2.9 million and 4.9 million views, respectively, in four days (shown below, left and right).

On August 10th, TikToker^[4] @zayscius posted a meme using the clip, commenting on the person to the left of her mimicking her every move perfectly, garnering over 6.6 million views in three days (shown below, left). On August 12th, TikToker^[5] @glory2kev posted a video comparing each person's dance moves to various characters, garnering over 1.6 million views in a day (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References