About

Walking With Random People and Acting Like We're Friends, also known as Walking Next To People, refers to a social challenge and prank trend that started on YouTube in January 2015 but later gained traction on TikTok in August 2021. YouTubers and TikTokers in the videos walk with random people, typically in the hallways and common areas of schools and universities, making them uncomfortable with their proximity.

Origin

On January 21st, 2015, the YouTube^[5] channel, BigDawsVlogs, uploaded a video (shown below) titled, "Walking Next to People." In the video, the prankster walks next to people in the rain with hidden cameras present, recording everything. The video gained roughly 64,000 views over one year and is an early precursor to the 2021 trend.

BigDaws recreated the video later that same year in a different video uploaded to his other channel, BigDawsTV, on September 22nd, 2015. The video (shown below) has roughly 20 million views as of September 2021.

Spread

The trend continued to gain traction in YouTube prankster circles throughout the next few years. For example, a video (shown below) posted by the YouTube^[6] channel, ThatWasEpic, on October 13th, 2017, received roughly 2.4 million views over the course of four years.

Spread to TikTok

On August 27th, 2021, TikToker^[1] @lilcowgirl270 posted a video (shown below) captioned, "Walking with random people and acting like we are friends in the hallway🤞💖." The video uses the TikTok sound, "stream 4ev3r by json.1," which was first popularized by the "Upwards Smile" trend started by TikToker^[2] @christian.langley on August 15th, 2021. @lilcowgirl270's TikTok received roughly 1.8 million views and 600,000 likes over the course of one week.

On August 30th, 2021, TikToker^[3] @098.andrea posted another video (shown below) of the trend under the title, "Walking wit random people ✨." The video received roughly 70,000 views and 15,000 likes over the course of one week.

The trend continued to gain traction going into September 2021. Most notably, TikToker^[4] @swaggy_baeee posted five parts of "walking next to random people and acting that we're friends" over the course of five days. Her first video, posted on September 4th, 2021, received over 28,000 likes in five days (seen below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References