About

The Jaywalk or Jaywalking is a dance move in which a person extends their arms out to the side with their forearms pointing straight to the ground while walking forward in quick, close, wiggling steps. The move was originally created in January 2019 to incite laughter but, over the next year, became apart of greater dance routines as well as becoming a Fortnite emote.

Origin

On January 10th, 2019, Dancer @j4ckson7 posted the earliest jaywalking video to his Instagram (shown below). The dancer, @J4ckson performs the move publicly, acquiring strange looks. The video gained over 21,100 likes in eight months.

Spread

On March 23rd, 2019, LADBible posted a compilation of @j4ckson7's jaywalk videos which amassed over 6.7 million views in six months (shown below, left). In combination with, Youtuber oswixco Jake's compilation which gained over 1.1 million views in five months (shown below, right), the jaywalk became a popular viral dance which some attached to the hashtag #jaywalkchallenge.

On April 29th, 2019, the creator of the jaywalk, J4CKSON7 posted a jaywalk tutorial to his YouTube channel (shown below, left). The video accumulated over 860,900 views and 27,000 likes in four months. In June,2 the jaywalk was added to the TikTok video dance challenge, the gitupchallenge. On July 30th, 2019, J4CKSON7 uploaded a Jaywalk music video which gained over 1.6 million views and 36,000 likes in a month (shown below, right). August 1st, 2019, Jaywalking was added to Fortnite as an emote in Battle Pass Season X.^[1]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References