Jimmy Fallon & Addison Rae’s ‘viral TikTok dances’ segment didn’t credit Black creators

The Inheritance Opening Day  - Arrivals.

I actually kind of hate covering anything to do with Jimmy Fallon? It’s a personal dislike for me, I think he’s a terrible interviewer and he grates on my last nerve. I assume that there are a lot of people like me in that respect, specifically with Fallon, because it took a while for this segment from last Friday’s Tonight Show to become a big deal. I assume it was because barely anyone watched it as it happened and people only found the clip because it was being shared on social media over the weekend.

So, what happened? There’s this young woman named Addison Rae. I’ve been hearing her name a lot recently and I had no idea who she is or what she does. It turns out that she’s a “social media star,” known for her TikTok and Instagram. Famous for being on social media, basically. Well, Fallon and the Tonight Show producers brought Addison on to do all of the viral TikTok dances. The problem? There were several. First off, Addison didn’t create any of these dances. They were (entirely?) created by Black TikTokers. Secondly, Addison is… not a great dancer? YIKES.

She’s 20 years old. Just in case you were like “but wait, is she a dumb kid?” She is a dumb kid who profits from culture-vulturing (poorly) and I hope she learns from this. But save the bulk of your ire for Fallon and his producers, who absolutely knew better. Even if Fallon & his producers were hellbent on having Becky over here perform the dances, was there ever any discussion about crediting the original creators in some way?

Photos courtesy of Instagram, Avalon Red.

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58 Responses to “Jimmy Fallon & Addison Rae’s ‘viral TikTok dances’ segment didn’t credit Black creators”

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  1. I pet goat 2 says:

    Yeah wow, that comparison video. Not that that’s the worst thing about stealing Black creations, knowledge, culture, but it always, very simply, ends up being second-best.

    ETA: Fallon does NOT have a face for tv lol

    • molly says:

      Not sure if it’s alcohol bloat or too many fillers, but Jimmy’s face is getting more and more uncomfortably puffy.

  2. Tanesha86 says:

    Addison is one of many white kids on TikTok profiting off the work and creativity of Black artists and I am truly tired. She and others like her reap all the benefits while the originators get ignored and usually left uncredited. I feel like she’s only popular because she’s white and pretty, she definitely can’t sing or dance

    • Tiffany says:

      Someone said that the algorithm is designed that way to make sure no one but white kids are the most prolific.

      That makes sense.

      • BothSidesNow says:

        Then Tiktok is part of the problem. They need to be held accountable and right the unjustly ongoing racist problem that has been perpetrated by white people for decades!! I hope that POC take a stand and boycott Tiktok for their continued atrocities against POC. We need to be shouting this from the rooftops of Tiktok and their exploitation to all POC who are the true artists and creators.
        I can’t stand Fallon and he is not worthy of my time.

      • Tiffany says:

        TikTok is a app from a creator not here in the U.S. (China, I believe) and they made it no secret that they are very much anti black and will make sure no success comes any talent from Black account holders way. The only was to stop this is to, well, stop.

      • McGee says:

        Tik Tok was/is originally designed to disfavor the “fat” and “not pretty,”… which is of course according to whose standards. ;/ Youth and race are quite likely other parts of their algorithm.

        It’s a dastardly app. Link: (www dot) them.us/story/tiktok-suppressed-fat-queer-disabled-creators

    • Annaloo. says:

      Thank you! Jimmy Fallon needs to make this right bc this cycle of overlooking and not centering Black creators has to stop! These kids have BLM all over the app, THEN MAKE IT SO!

      Fallon: get those kids the credit and exposure that they deserve too! Make them whole ffs- get them on the show and make good on the promise to DO BETTER!

    • Original Jenns says:

      She’s the one that was hanging out with Kourtney Kardashian et al. So, it looks like she’s got the right friends to go with the culture vulturing.

  3. Léna says:

    She looks so weird in the Fallon video, not enjoying it? Fake smiling? IDK. So weird.

    • Lucy2 says:

      She definitely had a high school dance team/cheer squad, big fake smile energy going on there.

      • Courtney B says:

        Cheerleading is what I thought of.

      • Amy Too says:

        This is the Torros stealing all the Clovers’ amazing moves again.

      • Lemons says:

        Cheer squad. If you’re on a good dance team and are a good dancer, you also have fire expressions when you dance. Cheer gives you the basics in choreographed dance moves, but you always have to plaster a smile on your face. (This is coming from a former cheerleader!)

    • Alarmjaguar says:

      Too worried about messing up her hair/face to actually enjoy the dancing

  4. Nanny to the Rescue says:

    Isn’t this Addison Rae controversy (her stealing her dance moves from black artists) pretty old? A couple of years old? Or was there another social media star doing that?

    My point is, it’s a well known problem, so I can hardly believe nobody on Fallon’s team heard about it.

    • Mia says:

      Charlie Dimelo (the most followed girl on the app) also stole from black creators. The signature dance she got famous for was stolen from a black girl.

  5. bub244 says:

    This is the girl that inexplicably spends a lot of time around Kourtney Kardashian, so no surprises here.

  6. Amy Bee says:

    I guess this means there are no black producers on his show.

  7. El says:

    Her name popped up on my feed yesterday and the comparison video, but I had no idea what it was about. Thank you for explaining to this old person.

  8. Lady Luna says:

    There’s another lady who also steals dances. She was trying to do the Hula dance and when people called her out on it she turned off the comments. She has like thousands of likes, while the original, and beautiful Hawaiian girls don’t even get a thank you or given credit. Her TikTok is whoxver.

  9. Lanagen says:

    I don’t get it, isn’t the whole point of tik tok dances that everyone does them? Why would they credit the creators? That’s pointless.

    This girl however is aggressively mediocre, and she looks like she’s in her 30s. YIKES all around.

    • Tweetime says:

      Everybody does them individually – but there are still creators and they should be credited, PARTICULARLY someone is using their work for their own profit. Jimmy Fallon is using their work as a segment for his show, Addison Rae is pulling in millions a year thanks to her popularity for doing the dances choreographed by other people. If they’re not getting any of the money they at the bare minimum deserve to have their names associated with their work.

    • BearcatLawyer says:

      Whether everyone does them or not does not cancel out the creators’ intellectual property.

      Also, I don’t know how many times it needs to be said, but representation matters. Fallon missed an artistic and comedic opportunity by only putting a semi-coordinated white woman on stage. Instead he could have generated a lot more laughs (and clicks) by playing clips of people attempting the various dances and then having the creators come onstage to wow the viewers with the original works.

    • paranormalgirl says:

      It’s actually proper TikTok etiquette to credit the creator. Yes, the dances become trends, but trends have creators and they should be credited.

  10. Onemoretime says:

    I heard a couple of black creators suggesting they all should stop putting out content for six months to see how the culture vultures and TikToc survives with out black creativity. I wish they would as the platform is clearly not poc friendly.
    When hate speech is reported TikTok doesn’t do anything to the violators, so when a video is made calling them out they remove that person’s video instead of the hate speech video.

    • ME says:

      This is a great idea. What would these white kids do if they couldn’t steal content from Black creators? They’d be lost !

  11. KBeth says:

    Another reason to dislike Fallon.

  12. Anna says:

    Jimmy Fallon is trash and has been for a long time. It’s a travesty that he got the Tonight Show but I guess that’s the audience. He’s not funny at all but thinks he is, constantly tries to steal the spotlight from his more famous guests, and has been stealing content for years. I seriously can’t stand him. And agreed with commenter above re: TikTok algorithm and Black creators. Everything is rigged against us. White supremacy is the greatest evil.

  13. Miss Margo says:

    First of all, tonight show producers and Jimmy Fallon are white, and have not evolved as people. They only hang out with other old white people so obviously why would they see an issue with having a white girl do these dances? I am so over Hollywood’s ignorance. I can’t believe how male dominated and Caucasian the industry is. They talk about wanting to evolve and “learn” but that is all a lie. They just want us to stop talking about it.

  14. Lively says:

    Very much dislike Fallon

  15. whateveryousay says:

    They should get blow back. As a lot of black people on Twitter explain, one they didn’t credit the original people who were black that started the dances, two, her dancing was tragic, and three TikTok apparently makes it really hard to even find black TikTok creators due to the algorithm on there. That last one I have zero clue about though since I don’t use TikTok.

    • paranormalgirl says:

      Yes. They seem to really push down the black creators. It’s ridiculous. They get banned and shadow banned for no apparent reason. Some of my favorite creators are POC. Some of the BEST are.

  16. girl_ninja says:

    Doesn’t Jimmy have people who look into this shit for him? What are producers for if not to research the people who come onto your show?

    This could have been a great boost to the black teens who actually created this dance and you pissed it away on some little girl who can barely dance.

    What a wasted opportunity.

    • Tiffany says:

      That is not his thing. Seriously. That is not what he is known for.

      It is amazing that Lorne Michaels is a producer behind both he and Seth Meyers and Meyers seems to get it more right than wrong when it comes to not only content but his staff. That is why Lorne makes sure The Tonight Show stays a white supremacists dream, Jimmy will always support and fall in line for it.

    • Lizzie Bathory says:

      Jimmy Fallon is a mess. I was at a wedding with him in NYC years ago. Dude killed an entire bottle of Jaegermeister basically by himself. And he didn’t stop at that. A couple of years later, he had to take time off from his show after almost ripping his finger off in an “accidental fall” at home. Then he fell down publicly at Harvard with…a bottle of Jaegermeister. No idea what his producers were thinking besides the obvious (stealing content from Black creators). My guess is they feel lucky that they can get him to turn up for shooting & things are bad behind the scenes. But that’s no excuse.

  17. Lucy2 says:

    At the very least, they could have put the dance creators tik tok name on the cards for each dance.

  18. Mabs A'Mabbin says:

    Wow. I’m on board with every single solitary point. Can’t stand Fallon. Who’s that chick ghastly dancing to dance moves which are obviously not in her wheelhouse? Or Fallon’s to be in distribution? Wrong, wrong, wrong all the way ’round. They can’t have any of satan’s shoes.

  19. Jess says:

    I can’t stand Fallon. My daughter is 14 and big into Tik Tok and complains all the time about how the white Tik Tokers have more followers than people of color on there despite being much less talented.

  20. Nina Simone says:

    Jimmy Fallon has always been a lightweight and mediocre interviewer. Not surprised he did this and barely gave it any thought.

    Black people are tired. Stealing from black entertainers and having white ‘creators’ regurgitate it to the masses is american history 101. It’s traumatic. A friend of mine, a small business designer just had her design stolen by the We Wore What girl. After she was asked to share the dress for free. What’s worse is we are left with scraps while people like Addison will earn millions from our creativity. We are sick of it. Just credit us, let US reap from our creations. The racial wealth gap continues to widen…

    • TaraBest says:

      @Nina, is this the one recently posted on Diet Prada? I’ve never supported We Wore What and only really know of her because of her prolific theft. I’m so sorry this happened to your friend.

  21. Watson says:

    Dear lord. That is one unseasoned mess of a dance.

  22. Annaloo. says:

    A complete missed opportunity to right the wrongs that continually happen to Black creatives

  23. ME says:

    Addison has been hanging out with the Kardashians and will also be on their show for one or two episodes (they have something in common with being culture vultures and all). I think she might get her own reality show. This is ridiculous. Tiktok seems to make pretty white girls famous. That is what I see. You don’t have to have much talent either…just be pretty, skinny, young, and a white female. It’s ridiculous.

  24. Alicesrightfoot says:

    Brrrrr, it’s cold in here. There must be some Clovers in the atmosphere.

  25. Lizzythe2 says:

    The comparison is too funny. If Jimmy knew the original creators it’s not cool to bring in this other girl who is just average.
    I love Jimmy Fallon but I do watch Colbert and Kimmel. Fallon is my favorite. I love that most of his stuff does not touch upon politics as much as the others. Especially with Trump, I was sick and tired of hearing about him. Of the 3 he had the least amount of mentions about DT.

  26. Edna says:

    White mediocrity rising to the top using the work of others. Lainey posted this on her website:

    Here’s a list of the people who created those dances so you can take a look at their awesome content:

    Do It Again – dance credit @noahschnapp

    Corvette Corvette – dance credit @yvnggprince

    Laffy Taffy – dance credit @flyboyfu

    Savage – dance credit @keke.janjah

    Blinding Lights – dance credit @macdaddyz

    Up – dance credit @theemyanicole

    Fergalicious – dance credit @thegilberttwins

    *The internet is still trying to figure out who created the “Savage Love” dance.

  27. Valerie says:

    Who the hell is she anyway? Like, I know she’s a TikTok star, but why is she famous?

  28. Veronica S. says:

    Why wouldn’t you just invite the original dancers to do it? Wouldn’t that be a lot more fun to get a bunch of people on there to make it look trendier, not to mention how many of them clearly feature people who do this either professionally or have some obvious dance training in their background? Like…unless you’re making fun of bad dancing, what’s the fun of somebody who’s clearly not an exceptional dancer??

  29. LittyKitty says:

    Everyone always talks about what should be done but no one ever does it. Just more of us shoulding on ourselves.

  30. Sarcasm101 says:

    So any person who makes up a dance for TikTok doesn’t get any credit or is that specific to people of color? I don’t understand how no one gets credit. ??

  31. JeanBerg says:

    Authors can go through this kind of thing a lot. For those future amateur authors to celeb authors out there, many folks (incl me) don’t read many books/ebooks anymore. So there’s that “silverlining.”

    The comparison in the vid is atrociously obvious.