From Apple Tv+ to Global Phenomenon: the Rise of the Jon Hamm Dancing Meme
By James H. Sterling
A dance meme rarely succeeds on visual cues alone. The kinetic engine powering this trend was an unexpected club track: Danish producer Kato’s "Turn the Lights Off," originally released in 2010. Pitch-shifted and sped up by TikTok creators, the track's driving synth line and pulsating bassline synced effortlessly with Hamm’s footwork.
Online creators quickly locked onto the Kato song lyrics, syncing Hamm’s sudden tempo changes with the vocal drops. The audio snippet, running roughly 12 to 15 seconds, became an official trending audio across short-form platforms. By mid-December, hundreds of thousands of individual user posts were utilizing the exact same sound bite.
Digital music monitors tracked immediate spillover onto commercial streaming services. Kato’s catalog saw daily streaming surges upward of 400%, pushing a decade-and-a-half-old European club single onto modern viral playlists across the United States, the UK, and Northern Europe. Music executives who had long watched catalog tracks find new life on TikTok noted that this pairing felt entirely organic, driven by amateur video editors rather than label marketing budgets.
James Sterling reports on renewable energy developments, climate policy, ecological conservation, and green tech innovations around the globe.
