About

Wave Filter is a filter applied to videos to make the screen image automatically shift left and right on the social media site Instagram. The filter exploded in popularity on TikTok rather than Instagram, with hundreds of thousands of videos being made to show it off, often accompanied by the song "Cumbia Buena" to make it appear as though the subject is dancing even when they're standing still.

Origin

On June 14th, 2022, the wave filter was added to Instagram, allowing people to record themselves with a little automatic shimmy motion and upload it to the social media platform. However, some users were quick to take these posts and also upload them to TikTok, with one of the first viral videos to use the effect being posted on June 15th, 2022, by the account Dazortwins^[1], which would feature the Cumbia Buena background beat and attain over 3,000 likes in four months (shown below).

Spread

On June 16th, 2022, the Tiktoker Kenzomizumoto^[2] uploaded a TikTok in which he directly shouts out the filter and its effects, exposing a lot of people to it and helping popularize its usage on TikTok by explaining how to use it in his comments, helping him gain over 520,000 likes in four months (shown below).

The filter trend began to spread until becoming more mainstream on July 13th, 2022, the day Kylie Jenner used the filter in a Tiktok^[3] that she uploaded, while also adding some moves to it to show off how it makes your body shape look more accentuated, earning herself over 11.8 million likes in three months and inspiring other celebrities to use it for their own brand TikToks as well (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References