Alana Hackman made a TikTok. 

Almost 5 million people liked it. 

Hackman was surprised — but not too surprised. 

“I feel like I’ve always wanted [social media] fame in some way, just because I’ve done so much work there in social media,” Hackman said. “So I feel like it was bound to happen.”

Hackman, 22, is a journalism major at Cal Poly Humboldt and a bona fide TikTok sensation, and has been for a couple weeks — and maybe for a couple more. 

The video, posted Oct. 2 and scored to the song “Laterals” by Fat Coda Studios, shows Hackman making her roommate’s boyfriend perform an interpretive dance as trade for letting him stay the night. 

Over 27 million people have watched it, and it’s spawned thousands of videos of people shimmying as payment; everything from husbands getting funky to watch football to people dancing for dinner to a woman asking her husband to boogie while she’s in labor.

Social media is second nature to Hackman. She’s worked six or seven social media jobs for a variety of organizations, such as Peer Health or KRFH student radio. Her thumb is constantly on the pulse of what’s popular. She figured the video would be popular because it had some things that many obscenely popular TikToks do: Women making men do something in a light-hearted way and a funny, novel concept. She does admit that it wasn’t all just her though. 

“I can’t take all the credit,” Hackman said. “His dance moves are really good. That was all him.”

The video only shows a fraction of the dancing. Hackman said the boyfriend danced for around five minutes. He was indeed allowed to stay, though Hackman made it clear that he always would have been able to stay over and they were just having fun. 

As with everything on the internet, it has its critics. She’s not letting it get her down. 

“At first it was a little ‘Um, OK,’’ Hackman said. “But then I also thought, ‘Oh, it’s the internet.’ People just say anything. But it was funny. I feel kind of bad in the same sense, because [Hackman’s roommate and her boyfriend] aren’t really on social media, and I’m the social media freak. So I felt bad. I feel like I’m exploiting them, and people keep asking me to remake stuff and ask him questions and other things. I’m, like, no! It was a one-hit thing. You just gotta let it be.”

Though Hackman and the people in the video have been getting recognized out on the street or in the Co-Op, she doesn’t plan to let the success go to her head.

“I’m still Alana,” she said. “Trends come and go so fast … [you should] make people dance more though. That’s a fun barter. Barter more and make people dance as a result of that. It brings joy to life and a light-heartedness to demands.  I would have never known he could dance like that if I didn’t make him.”