About

Squidward's Tiki Land refers to a song taken from an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants where Squidward Tentacles floats through a "Tiki Land" while statues sing him the tropical song. It went viral on TikTok as sound in 2022 when users started performing a finger wiggle to it among other uses. Eventually, the voice of Squidward recreated the viral trend.

Origin

On June 19th, 2010, the SpongeBob episode, "Enchanted Tiki Dreams," aired on American TV, being episode 145b within the seventh season.^[1] A scene within the episode involves the character Squidward Tentacles floating down a river in a boat while enchanted tiki head statues sing to him "Squidward's Tiki Land."

Welcome to Squidward's Tiki Land!
Welcome to Squidward's Tiki Land!
You can relax all day, like a Tiki can…
Or lay out in the sun, for a Tiki tan…

On January 21st, 2022, the TikTok^[2] account justiceisadork posted the Squidward's Tiki Land clip to the platform, earning roughly 2.6 million plays and 336,200 likes over the course of two months, effectively bringing the sound to the platform (shown below).

Spread

On February 25th, TikToker^[3] bottleofdjinn posted a video of him with the front-facing camera, wiggling his finger in a hypnotic way to the Squidward's Tiki Land sound. The video starts with him outside in the snow but then cuts halfway to him being in a tropical, warm setting. The video (shown below) received roughly 20.5 million plays and 4.8 million likes over the course of one month. On top of that, bottleofdjinn resembles Squidward with his expression.

The next day, on February 26th, TikTokers started using the sound en masse. For instance, TikToker^[4] daniafk showed confusion over how bottleofdjinn was able to wiggle his finger the way he did, using the TIki Land sound in her own TikTok that referenced it. The video (shown below, left) earned roughly 2.6 million plays and 377,500 likes in one month. Also on February 26th, TikToker^[5] blizzymcguire used the sound for something unrelated, showing their dog dancing around with its tongue out, earning roughly 2 million plays and 423,500 likes in the same amount of time (shown below, right).

More TikTokers picked up on the finger-wiggling trend going into March 2022. The song became increasingly notable to the point that Rodger Bumpass, the voice of Squidward on the show, recreated the finger wiggle. The TikTok was posted on March 15th by the TikTok^[6] account fanexpohq, earning roughly 962,00 plays and 184,600 likes over three days (shown below, left). Then, TikToker^[7] bottleofdjinn posted a Duet with him on March 16th, earning roughly 4.1 million plays and 930,000 likes over two days (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References