About

#YouHaveTo refers to a snowclone video trend popularized on TikTok under the hashtag #YouHaveTo. In the videos, a user films themself giving motivational advice to the viewer, always starting with the words, "You have to." Videos under the hashtag range from genuine attempts at giving motivational advice, to parodies of the format, offering comedic motivational advice. The videos are most commonly attached to the sound "A Moment Apart – ODESZA – Hannah Stater."^[1]

Origin

On February 28th, 2020, TikToker hannah_harpist^[2] uploaded a video of herself playing the song "A Moment Apart" by electronica group ODESZA^[3] (shown below). The video garnered over 9.9 million views and 1.6 million likes in seven months. The original sound from this video became the basis for "#YouHaveTo" videos, as well as #MainCharacter videos, another popular TikTok trend. Videos under hannah_harpist's sound hit over 323 thousand views by September 24th.

On May 26th, TikToker ashlaward^[4] posted a motivational video set to hannah_harpist's sound encouraging people to romanticize their lives, kicking off the #MainCharacter TikTok trend, which in itself encourages viewers to see their lives as a movie and themselves as the main character (shown below). The video garnered over 2.8 million views and 512 thousand likes in four months. This video inspired the general format for the #YouHaveTo trend.

Spread

The #MainCharacter trend took off after ashlaward's video, with videos under the hashtag #MainCharacter hitting over 4.7 billion views in four months. #YouHaveTo didn't takeoff until September 2020, when it hit the trending page. One of the earliest instances of the trend was uploaded on September 2nd by TikToker stanzipotenza,^[5] in a video captioned "The days of the main character are over, villains rise up" (shown below). In the video, stanzipotenza ironically encourages viewers to see themselves as a villain rather than a main character. It received over 1.1 million views in 22 days, and is one of the first parody #YouHaveTo videos.

On September 7th, TikToker notthomas^[6] uploaded a parody video encouraging viewers to stop being scared of teens at the mall (shown below, left). The video garnered over 3 million views in 17 days. On September 9th, Dr. Phi^[7]l uploaded a video captioned, "#YouHaveTo stop calling me 'daddy.' I ain't ya daddy" to his TikTok page (shown below). This is one of the most popular #YouHaveTo parodies and helped the trend explode, garnering over 34.9 million views and 7.5 million likes in 15 days.

As of September 24th, 2020, videos under the #YouHaveTo tag have garnered over 4 billion total views.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References