Back in 2018, Netta released her song “Toy” and went on to win Eurovision in Lisbon. Two years on, the song has found a new audience, going viral on the popular social media platform TikTok. And Netta is determined to teach TikTok’ers about the artist behind the song.
“Toy” has been used in over two million TikTok videos, as creators take inspiration from Netta’s sassy, quirky pop track. The song is the soundtrack for skits, art projects, fancams, cartoons and just a good old-fashioned lip-sync. Netta has put together a compilation of some of her favorites:
Most iconic is popular TikTok’er @itsjustaba. She took inspiration from the chicken noises part of “Toy” and made a point-of-view video imagining a scenario where “you get possessed by a chicken while we’re in an argument”.
The video has inspired many responses, sometimes with TikTok’ers dressing up in yellow so they too can get possessed by a chicken.
Netta gives TikTok a history lesson
But a song going viral on TikTok doesn’t always translate to success for the artist. As a recent article in Rolling Stone magazine noted, TikTok users don’t always form a connection with the artists behind the songs.
But Netta seems determined to change that. She has made TikTok videos responding to the song and teaching TikTok’ers about her Eurovision story.
In her first reaction video, Netta comes to terms with the TikTok fame of “Toy”, writing “Um, #Toy is going #VIRAL !?!?! What is happening!!!”
In a second video, Netta gives TikTok an introduction to who she is and how the song gave her a Eurovision win. She wrote, “What the HECK, I still can’t believe #Toy is going #viral on TikTok!!! Here is the trophy I won for it at #Eurovision in 2018!”
In Netta’s third video, she fully embraces the world of “Toy” on TikTok. Netta creates a side-by-side response to @itsjustaba’s chicken video, writing “I am obsessed with you, @itsjustaba 💛”
Eurovision music on TikTok
Netta isn’t the first Eurovision-related star to have a song go viral on TikTok. Earlier in the year, Romanian singer Serena enjoyed TikTok fame when her song “Safari” went viral.
“Safari” had been Serena’s entry in Selecția Națională 2018 but crashed out in the semi-finals. However, it found a new international audience on TikTok, where it was used as the soundtrack for computer gameplay, a fancam tribute to K-pop giants BTS, a celebration of great cricketing moments, and a number of original skits.
To date, “Safari” used been used in over 205,100 videos on TikTok. For contrast, Eurovision 2021 hits such as Daði Freyr’s “Think About Things” has been used 86,600 times, while The Roop’s “On Fire” has 6460 videos. However, Little Big’s “Uno” has been used in 796,000 videos. But Netta is the current Eurovision TikTok queen, with “Toy” having been used in over two million videos.
What do you think? Which other Eurovision songs might go viral on TikTok? Will TikTok influence the type of songs written for Eurovision 2021? Tell us your thoughts below!
Happy that Toy is getting this type of success now! I am still surprised though it never went viral after winning Eurovision. Netta went to US to promote but it never took off on radio or media. Same for Europe which is surprising because it freaking won the televoting. I am not sure if this is related to politics though because INetta’s victory was overshadowed by the BDS, protests, boycotts and Palestine situation on the news 🙁 I also thought it would have success in Arab countries and Japan, since it has elements that are familiar to these areas. for… Read more »
Happy for her she deserved it! Good to see an esc winning song doing well even too years later. I would include in this article the song Bim Bam Toi as it’s eurovision related and was viral on tik tok too, used more than 1.6 millions times.
But Carla is the current Junior Eurovision TikTok queen 😉
Carla went viral after her Junior Eurovision performance, it is a good sign for France!
I would say I’m tiktoks main demographic and I was SHOCKED when I heard it on my FYP since I live in America. It is a very wacky song so I’m not surprised snippets of the song went viral!
So happy for her, and her spotify streams have been going up, kudos for that
that’s true, she’s getting more listeners and streams now!