### Chapter 48: The Viral Dance on Douyin
Japan, Tokyo.
At Zouchou’s Agency, the idol base.
“Hey, Peach Sister! Come check this out!”
Momotaki, fresh off her training, had just opened the apartment door when teammate Coconut Milk called her in.
Once inside, she discovered:
Coconut Milk and two other team members, Caiyan and Renmei, were all huddled in a room, scrolling through Douyin videos.
These guys!
Just finished a rehearsal, with a concert looming over the weekend, they should be resting but are instead gathered here to watch more Douyin!
As the leader of the popular idol group “KING,” Momotaki genuinely wanted to give them a piece of her mind!
“Don’t rush, Peach Sister. Take a look at this!”
Enthusiastic, Coconut Milk shoved her phone right under Momotaki’s nose.
In the video, a male high school student and a female high school student were playing instruments— one was probably playing the piano, while another seemed to be… strumming something that might be a cello?
“Can-Can?”
Momotaki squinted and read out the name of the piece.
She didn’t get it. What was so interesting about it?
Instead of practicing her senior idol’s live footage, now they’re gathered to listen to pure music?
“Listen, Listen!”
Coconut Milk stuck out her tongue and hit play.
With light piano notes and a lively cello tune, a rather cheerful melody started to dance upon the air.
Momotaki’s eyes suddenly sparkled.
“Hahaha, isn’t this fun?” said Coconut Milk, beaming.
“It’s awesome! Whoa, this tune is so cool!”
Momotaki couldn’t help but praise.
As a member of the group, she was also occasionally involved in composing songs and choreographing dances for the team.
This whimsical vibe instantly struck a chord within her.
Those two named “Moonlight” and “Cat” must be a hilariously cute couple in real life!
Caiyan had closed her eyes, her body swaying involuntarily.
This instinctive idol response meant any song they found incredibly amusing would trigger an impromptu dance.
That’s how many of their famous dance moves came about.
“We were just talking about using this as a dance routine!” Renmei chuckled.
“That’s a good idea.”
Momotaki pondered for a moment, “Hey, why don’t we make a Douyin video with this BGM?”
“Great! That’s exactly why I called you here!” Coconut Milk agreed with enthusiasm.
It wasn’t the first time “KING” had done something like this.
Thanks to their immense popularity, the group’s official Douyin account had over four million followers. Whenever a viral video BGM came along, they’d hop on the trend.
As long as the video didn’t involve profits, there were no copyright issues.
Let’s do it!
The four idols, still damp from their hurried workout, rushed back to the dance studio.
Mounting their phones on a stand, they began improvising a dance to the upbeat Can-Can music.
Teenagers hopped around like limping ducks, then struck adorable devil-may-care faces toward the camera.
Pretty soon, a nonsensical yet extremely entertaining dance routine was born!
On the second afternoon after [Moonlight] and [Cat’s] Can-Can song went viral on Douyin…
A sudden discovery was made by countless social media users and journalists—
A new trend had emerged on Douyin!
Many popular online stars started dancing to a surprisingly quirky dance to the tune of Can-Can!
And the origin? It stemmed back to a Douyin post by Japan’s ultra-popular girl group, KING!
In the video, four idol girls danced to the catchy tune, jerking around in hilariously absurd ways.
The faster the music, the quicker their movements, until the dancers broke into uncontrollable laughter, flailing their limbs wildly.
Coconut Milk covered her face modestly while hurriedly turning off the recording on the smartphone.
Now they had officially created art!
—
[Aaaaaaaaaah! So cute!]
[Hahaha! Coconut Milk is just too adorable!]
[I saw this song yesterday and didn’t expect the sisters to come up with such a dance so quickly!]
[KING really made it big by riding the wave of Moonlight’s and Cat’s popularity.]
[I have a feeling this song will take over Douyin tomorrow!]
[Watching history unfold! Soon this challenge will explode across the platform HAHA!]
—
In just three short hours, KING’s video gained 1.3 million likes.
Alongside, Moonlight and Cat’s original video exceeded 1 million likes.
Quickly, other social media influencers followed suit.
By the evening,
The #CanCanDanceChallenge took third place on the Douyin trending list!
This viral success partly owed to the humorous nature of the dance which pushed people out of their comfort zone, mimicking limp dances and making goofy faces at the camera.
If you could hum along to the rhythm, phrases like “lala, lalala~”, the effect became even better.
As the Can-Can music increased in tempo, so did the dance’s pace until everyone burst into laughter, signaling the end of the video.
The cuter and sweeter-looking the online star, the better this video fared.
Thus, whether a dance vlogger, music blogger, or even a risqué influencer gave it a try.
Unconsciously, it sparked another battle:
Damn! This is exactly the kind of dance we should be doing! F*ck those boring moves! Finally, something normal and cute!
Absolutely! Do we always need suggestive content to catch attention? Isn’t Can-Can so green and charming?!
Douyin finally got back to something decent after pushing those ridiculously crude tracks for ages.
Wahh! We owe it to Moonlight and Cat. Without them, where would we find these cute girls?
Many Douyin users had been thoroughly sick of the glut of mindless, low-quality songs.
Yet, Douyin made it worse by allowing only dislikes for videos, not for the BGM.
So folks got forcefully exposed to them.
Just another case of forced feeding!
Each time someone hyped up some viral hit on Douyin, users were left numb.
Was it because of good music?
Nah, it was just Douyin pushing and pushing those songs!
So rarely does one encounter such sweet-sounding tunes with non-suggestive dance routines.
When the Can-Can craze hit, Moonlight and Cat’s account followers skyrocketed to 320,000.
Fans eagerly commented, wanting Moonlight and Cat to join in and create their own version, believing their involvement would truly spice things up.
Lin Tian put down his phone and looked over at the sulky Ganyan Yu on the sofa.
“Don’t look at me.”
Ganyan Yu pouted, wagging her index finger before Lin Tian.
“I will never dance!”
