What are the drawbacks of social media on the dance industry?

• Plagairsim. When a choreographer posts their work online, there is always the chance of the choreography being stolen or copied without credit (Lansky). This applies to dance challenges on TikTok to whole dance performances on YouTube being stolen. It's common courtesy to put "dc" which stands for "dance credit" in the caption of your TikTok if you're doing a dance that's not your own, but it's hard to catch everybody who doesn't do it. The "Renegade" TikTok dance challenge that went viral in 2020 was created by young black dancer Jalaiah Harmon. She was discredited when the dance went viral because of a young, white dancer named Charli D'Amelio who was more popular on the platform than her. D'Amelio claimed she never started the dance, but because she didn't include dance credit the entire platform mistook her as the creator. This is a common occurence on the app. Similar on YouTube, smaller workshop choreographers have had their pieces stolen off YouTube and performed offline. A lot of the dance moves and styles that become popular online get used and recycled, but at some point it becomes stealing.

• Risks of Cultural Appropriation. Dance on social media invites anyone to be apart of the community because everything online is free to the public. The styles that become popular online typically come from a specific culture. The main examples would be hip-hop, afrobeat, and other street styles. Social media introduces people to styles that they may be unfamilar with but instead of understanding the roots and history of where they came from, they just dance them. To publically do a dance style without appreciating the cultural significance of it is a problem in the dance world (Cunningham). People who make these styles popular online but don't give credit to its origins are appropriating the culture. 

• Negative Effects on Mental Health. "Dancers can find themselves in an unhealthy cycle of comparing themselves to others and potentially pushing their individuality down to follow trends and dance like others. Dancers can feel that they are not good enough because there is so much talent in the world and pushed out on social media. It is a part of human nature to compare" (Basset). Any person can become obsessed with how many likes they get on a post or how many followers they have, the same goes for dancers who utilize social media as their creative outlet and marketing tool.