TikTok
Just 24 hours after Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars, musicians on TikTok had already released songs that turned the audio from the confrontation into dubstep and electronic remixes.
Sounds that use phrases from Smith and Rock's confrontation quickly went viral with millions of views.
During the 94th Academy Awards on March 27, Smith walked onto the Oscars stage and hit comedian Chris Rock in the face following a comment about his wife Jada Pinkett Smith's baldness.
When the footage emerged, memes about the actor quickly spread on Twitter. On TikTok, the discussion follows a trend for mash-ups and remixes on the platform, such as when a TikToker turned an Australian senator's speech into a trending TikTok sound in November 2021.
Creators of the viral songs who put hours of work into their sounds told Insider they know the TikTok trend is unlikely to last very long, but that taking advantage of viral moments is their best chance to become well known as musicians.
On the morning March 29, an Australian producer duo called the Sunset bros released a short sound on TikTok which they called, "Talk smack, get smacked." They used audio from the ceremony of Smith yelling, "Keep my wife's name out your fucking mouth" to make a dubstep remix that received 2.5 million views.
The Sunset Bros have under 9,000 TikTok followers, but their sound soon spread widely on the app, especially after it was used in a cupcake making video by baking account @thesugarslut, which was viewed over a million times. The audio has now been used in 23,000 videos, and is known as "Sunset Bros audio."
Most videos that used the sound filmed themselves dancing to the music and adding the hashtags "Will Smith" and "remix" to their videos. They also tended to comment on how quickly these songs were released. One video with 2.7 million views features an on-screen caption that reads, "I'm living for the fact that it hasn't even been 24 hours and this already exists."
LA music duo J Cru told Insider it only took them an hour to produce and release their own remix about the slap, which now has 6 million views.
"Speed was important while making the remix, we knew getting it out there as fast as possible was the move in order for it to blow up," they said.
Christian Hahn, from Long Island, New York, made a TikTok dancing to the Sunset Bros' remix that has been viewed 4.4 million times. He told Insider he thinks the song taking off is down to the way attitudes have changed towards the Oscars, saying he thinks viewers today are "only in it for the tweets and memes."
ABC reported that 16.6 million people watched the Oscars, which is the second-lowest viewership count the ceremony has ever seen. However, clips and memes of Will Smith's slap exploded online, as social media interactions about the Oscars increased by 139%, from 9.5 million to 22.7 million interactions according to the outlet, and a clip of the slap broke YouTube records for receiving the most views in a single day at 50 million, as reported by The Sun.
Tyrese Dominique, a 22-year-old TikToker who made a video using a trending remix about the slap, told Insider that TikTok sounds "add to the discussion" around events like this, because people want to take advantage of how viral it has become and "gain views and likes off this moment."
J Cru told Insider they think TikToks about the slap are unlikely to stay relevant. "It's simply a trend. It will get lost when the next big scandal or TV moment happens," they said.
However, the duo told Insider they still think this moment is a "great opportunity to get our name out there," adding that they are planning to put a full version of their viral TikTok remix on Spotify.
Carl Dixon, a creator in Las Vegas who has been making remixes out of viral soundbites since 2012, told Insider he put three hours of work into his remix, which has 100,000 views, even though he thinks the trend will be "dead in a few days."
"The incentive for me is to entertain people while building visibility and a possible fanbase," he said, adding that on TikTok, "There's so much opportunity for independent talent, and everyone's just one song away from a hit."
For more stories like this, check out coverage from Insider's Digital Culture team here.
