The Tiktokification of Dancing with the Stars: A Hit or a Miss?

I can vividly recall the overwhelming anticipation I felt in the days leading up to Dancing with the Stars Tuesdays as a child. Every Tuesday without fail I would be planted on my living room couch at 8 pm sharp, ready to marvel at the intricate choreography on screen. Every year, I hoped that one day, I too, could dance on national television with a new celebrity. This was at least a decade ago, far before Tiktok was even released and social media became integrated into my daily life. Today, TikTok has become an essential component of Dancing with the Stars promotions, with their official TikTok account amassing 5.2 million followers. This account posts a variety of videos, including behind the scenes footage of dance rehearsals, the cast’s participation in popular TikTok trends, and short clips from recently aired episodes of the show. The Dancing with the Stars team is so dedicated to the use of TikTok that they even posted 13 videos in a single day during the airing of Season 33. 

I personally had stopped watching this show years ago, only recently getting back into it because of its popularity on TikTok–a platform I go on multiple times a day. Through my increased engagement with Dancing with the Stars on this platform, I have noticed that a lot of people have qualms with the increased integration of TikTok with this show, believing that it overshadows the methods that this competition was originally founded upon. 

An example of this was the decision to select Charli D’Amelio–one of the largest TikTok stars in the world–as a celebrity contestant in the show's 31st season. When Season 31 was airing in 2022, D’Amelio had 140 million TikTok followers, who undoubtedly influenced the audience voting that contributed to her winning the mirrorball trophy. However, her popularity was not the only reason for her success; she demonstrated immense dancing skill as early as week one, with the judges giving her a combined score of 32 out of 40. This was a uniquely high score for the first week of this competition, which was largely thanks to her extensive background in competitive dance. This angered many fans of the show, as the original purpose of Dancing with the Stars was to allow celebrities with little to no dancing experience to embark on a learning journey, competing together to see who could become the best ballroom dancer in a short period of time. I can see where these critics are coming from, as I remember how exciting it was to watch these celebrities gradually improve from their original uncoordinated selves. However, I also remember celebrities with dance experience being on this show in seasons prior, including Nicole Scherzinger, Jordan Fisher, and Jojo Siwa. What differentiated D'Amelio, nonetheless,  was her millions-strong TikTok fanbase that drove her audience appeal–which was most likely the main motivation for her selection as a contestant on this show. This calls into question how fair it is for the Dancing with the Stars casting team to select a celebrity purely based on their existing popularity, showcasing a complete disregard for the show's original intent in the process.

Another aspect which accompanies the increased use of TikTok for Dancing with the Stars promotions is its changed portrayal of showmances. Showmances are when the audience, or even the couple themselves, decides that a celebrity and their “pro” dancing partner have become romantically involved–a phenomenon present on this show for years–due to the fact that couples are made to train together all day for weeks on end. A popular showmance during Season 33 was between professional ballroom dancer Gleb Savchenko and Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Brooks Nader. Look, I have nothing against a good showmance, but this one was too much. They were constantly on top of one another throughout the competition, even kissing in the background footage released on the show. Following their elimination in week five of the competition, Savchenko and Nader decided to take to their respective TikTok accounts and post countless videos subtly referencing one another and their romantic relationship. In one TikTok, posted only nine days following her departure from the show, Nader is seen reacting to a popular TikTok sound with the accompanying text: “When he’s breaking up with me but I never knew we were dating,” which users in the comment section took to reference Savchenko. Most of her other TikTok posts during this time period–along with Savchenko’s–are alluding to the probable romantic relationship they had while on the show. I have nothing against sharing your personal life online, but this constant posting about their “relationship” just ruins the whole aspect of a showmance for me. In my opinion, a showmance is supposed to be vague and up to the audience’s interpretation based on little snippets of background footage on the show. Providing all of this footage and information online takes away from the excitement of a viewer creating their own theories about a couple’s relationship, and more importantly, overshadows the entire point of the show–dancing. 

I think the perfect example of a showmance on TikTok that doesn’t overshadow the dancing aspect of the show is the relationship between former Bachelorette Jenn Tran and professional ballroom dancer Sasha Farber–who were in the same season as Nader and Savchenko. Instead of directly addressing the palpable chemistry they had, Tran and Farber posted entertaining content on TikTok that inherently conveyed their romantic tension. One TikTok posted by Tran depicts Farber gifting her a beautiful bouquet of flowers and congratulating her on her performance in the show the night prior, sparking hundreds of users to comment on their evident romantic chemistry. What makes this relationship more appealing to me is Tran’s commitment to also posting about her dancing experience even after leaving the show–while almost all of Nader’s videos about Dancing with the Stars are in reference to her romance with Savchenko–and the fact that she doesn’t constantly push her relationship with Farber in her audience’s faces. I know this is an unpopular stance, but I believe that this is part of a larger conversation on what is “too much” when posting online. For an audience, constantly posting about the same topic on social media without giving any real confirmation can eventually become tiring, and I think the overwhelming attention on Nader and Savchenko’s relationship will eventually deplete because of this. 

So is TikTok improving Dancing with the Stars, or is it simply a marketing tool used at the expense of the show’s original values? Well, there are both upsides and downsides to the use of this social media platform. On the positive side, TikTok has become a platform where viewers can see the behind the scenes of this show, allowing them to further connect with the celebrity contestants and the professional dancers. This consequently compels them to vote for their favorite competitor, increasing the show’s audience voting. On the other hand, it is clear that the use of this platform can be considered to be unfair–as seen with Charli D’Amelio’s participation–and can honestly be a bit too much with the insufferable pushing of showmances. With all things considered, I do think the positives outweigh the negatives, as the viewers are able to see a completely new side of Dancing with the Stars through their TikTok page and feel even more excited about the show. I know TikTok helped me get back into Dancing with the Stars, so even though it can be annoying at times, I’ll always be grateful for the show’s use of this platform.