Member-only story
The Guy Behind TikTok’s Biggest Song Has Earned Precisely Zilch from 18 Million Videos
Jacob Feldman’s success is bittersweet — but he has the secret to viral tracks on TikTok, so he’s going to make them himself
What did you do on Christmas Day? 1,048,863 people woke up, opened TikTok, and recorded a video set to the tune of Mariah Carey’s ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ which — without warning — slips into Soulja Boy’s 2007 cult classic, ‘Crank That’.
The song is a social media phenomenon, playing a role in catapulting Carey to the top of the Billboard charts for Christmas (as we’ve previously reported) and capturing the zeitgeist on TikTok, the trendy new app you showed your parents and grandparents while you were home for the holidays. The top 10 most-liked videos on the app using the track have been praised 48 million times. Those million Christmas Day creators weren’t alone, either. They’ve helped contribute to a treasure trove of 18.2 million videos that have used the smash-cut song, seven times more than used Lil Nas X’s ‘Old Town Road’, despite the fact that the Christmas decorations have long since come down. Even this week, more than 250,000 videos using the song were uploaded to TikTok.
