A TikTok video created by a University of South Carolina sorority has accumulated 7.9 million views, making it one of the most-watched videos in the popular TikTok genre of #RushTok.
The local chapter of Alpha Xi Delta sorority used an internet trend called the Mannequin Challenge with people frozen in place to show preparations for this month’s recruitment. The video was posted Aug. 11, and quickly went viral with millions of views, 847,300 likes and 14,000 comments.
Chapter President Amanda Pometti came up with the idea of using the Mannequin Challenge concept and sorority sister Rachel Bowling shot the video. “I never expected it to blow up the way it did,” said Bowling, adding she “loved being able to be so creative and make something that people could enjoy and laugh about."
TikTok has one billion active users, most under the age of the 30, and popular videos
amass millions of views. The Social Media Insights Lab at the University of South
Carolina analyzed 384,400 TikTok videos under common hashtags like #Rushtok and #Bamarush.
The Alpha Xi Delta post was one of the very top performers. The typical #RushTok video
had about 66,000 views, according to the lab.
At South Carolina, other sororities produced TikTok videos related to this year’s
recruitment. The second-highest performer, according to the Insights Lab, was this
post by Pi Beta Phi, which has had 434,400 views. Other university sorority posts attracted
significant attention. The following sororities had posts related to rush with more
than 250,000 views: Phi Mu, Chi Omega, Alpha Delta Pi and Kappa Kappa Gamma.
The RushTok genre emerged on TikTok a year ago with young women at the University
of Alabama sharing their experiences during sorority rush. #RushTok was born and quickly
became a cultural phenomenon not unlike a successful reality TV show. The videos where
the women often shared their experiences as well as what brands they were wearing
went viral, prompting imitations from sororities elsewhere as well as critical comments
about the rush participants and what they seemed to value.
The Insights Lab only found one video with more views than the Alpha Xi Delta post. It came from a student at the University of Alabama. Kylan Darnell’s post on bid day, when women receive their invitations to join a sorority, received 8.8 million views.
To produce this report, the Insights Lab partnered with Pentos, a TikTok measurement and monitoring tool.
About the Social Media Insights Lab
The lab is part of the College of Information and Communications. It is used for teaching, academic research and public reports intended to help people better understand issues of the day. View a full list of reports and follow the lab on Twitter at @UofSCInsights.