Griddy

About

The Griddy refers to a dance trend started in 2017 on Instagram by players within Lousiana high school football teams. It became a common touchdown celebration between 2018 and 2022 in both the NCAA and NFL, largely from the professional football players Ja'Marr Chase and Justin Jefferson. It was also added to the video game Fortnite as an emote in 2021. It became a more viral trend in 2022 on TikTok where creators started doing the Griddy dance en masse, showing off their Fortnite characters doing it as well.

Origin

The person that invented the Griddy dance was Louisiana native and Instagram creator Allen "Griddy" Davis, who played football at Landry-Walker High School in Louisiana. In a YouTube video posted on October 2nd, 2020, by YouTuber Norman Locke, Davis was interviewed about the Griddy dance's origin. He stated that he used to do the dance in the locker room in high school, when one day, someone recorded him and put it on Snapchat. From there, high school football players around the New Orleans area started replicating his dance, doing it in their own locker rooms. The interview (shown below) amassed roughly 586,000 views over the course of two years.

The first recording of the Griddy dance online was posted by Davis to his YouTube^[1] channel on June 8th, 2018. The video shows multiple screen recordings of Snapchat Stories, most likely from 2017 when Davis was first documented. The video (shown below) received roughly 37,200 views over the course of four years.

Davis was also interviewed on Houston local news in late 2020. The interview was posted to YouTube by him on November 30th, 2020, where he says that the Griddy dance was named after his own nickname. The video (shown below) received roughly 1,000 views over two years.

Spread

Going into 2019, college football teams started doing the Griddy dance on the field and in their locker rooms. For instance, the Utah college football team was seen doing the dance in December 2019 (shown below, left). Also in 2019, LSU player Justin Jefferson performed the Griddy dance multiple times after scoring touchdowns. Allen "Griddy" Davis posted a YouTube video of it on December 1st, 2019, earning roughly 29,100 views in two years (shown below, right).

On December 17th, 2019, Davis posted a Griddy tutorial to his YouTube channel, earning roughly 33,900 views over the course of two years (shown below).

In 2020, Justin Jefferson was drafted to the Minnesota Vikings and on September 27th, 2020, he scored his first touchdown with the team, subsequently performing a Griddy dance as a celebration when he walked into the endzone. The video was posted to YouTube the same day by the channel OSU Overload, where over the course of a year and a half, it received roughly 335,400 views (shown below).

Also in September 2020, rapper NBA YoungBoy, also known as YoungBoy Never Broke Again, made a new song called, "Right Foot Creep," which further popularized the Griddy dance. The music video was posted to YouTube on September 22nd, 2020, by the channel Smoov3dits ! where over the course of a year and a half, the video gained roughly 830,000 views (shown below).

In October 2020, users on TikTok started performing the dance along with the NBA YoungBoy song. One of the first to do so was TikToker^[2] brucethompson, who posted a video on October 2nd of him doing the Griddy on a turf football field, earning roughly 167,700 plays and 10,600 likes over the course of a year and a half (shown below).

The Griddy Dance In Fortnite

On April 26th, 2021, the official Twitter account of Fortnite posted a tweet^[3] that announced the Griddy dance would be available as an emote in the shop starting on April 28th, inspired by NFL player Justin Jefferson. The tweet (shown below) earned roughly 10,100 likes over the course of nine months.

On April 28th, the YouTube channel Placid posted a YoungBoy Never Broke Again "Right Foot Creep" music video, having NFL Fortnite skins doing the Griddy dance in the video. Over the course of nine months, the video received roughly 4.5 million plays (shown below).

Griddy Dance On TikTok

As stated, the Griddy dance appeared on TikTok in relation to the "Right Foot Creep" song starting in September 2020, however, it didn't take off in abundance until early 2021. For instance, on January 5th, 2021, TikToker^[4] mitchellpehlke posted a Griddy dance video that received roughly 2,100 likes over one year (shown below, left). On March 7th, 2021, TikToker^[5] marcusprestwood posted a Griddy video that received roughly 1.9 million plays in 11 months (shown below, right).

Going into 2022, the Griddy dance appeared in more abundance on TikTok as the Cinncinati Bengals continued to win games in the NFL Playoffs with their star player Ja'Marr Chase who was also known for being a Louisiana native and early adopter of the Griddy dance. On January 7th, 2022, the official TikTok^[6] account of the Bengals posted a video of Chase talking about the Griddy, earning roughly 743,00 likes over the course of one month (shown below).

A new song called "Playboy" by rapper Jx.Zero started to be used on TikTok in conjunction with the Griddy dance. Although the song was officially released in March 2021,^[7] it started to be used as a sound for the Griddy dance on TikTok in late January 2022. On January 23rd, 2022, TikToker^[8] dadygion posted a video in which he stated, "Her: i hate fortnite," only to flex his Fortnite character performing a dance. The video (shown below, left) received roughly 72,800 likes in 10 days. Inspired by the concept, on January 27th, TikToker^[9] .luhtonka posted a similar video, earning roughly 41,200 likes in six days (shown below, right). In his video, he makes his character do the Griddy emote to the song.

The aforementioned TikToks inspired a new Griddy trend going into the rest of 2022 where multiple male TikTokers posted videos of their Fortnite characters doing the Griddy emote in response to an imagined woman saying that she doesn't like Fortnite or other games like Roblox. For instance, on January 31st, TikToker^[10] b0nnetwarrior posted a video within the trend that namedropped Roblox, receiving roughly 78,500 likes in three days (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References