During the 1980s, artist Wilder created a song in about 30 minutes. That song, Break My Stride, has been played in films and TV shows over the years and turned him into a one-hit wonder.
Now, nearly forty years later, the song is being listened to by people who weren't even born when it was created, thanks to its popularity on the social media（社交媒体）TikTok.
On TikTok, users usually share very short, usually 15-second, videos of themselves dancing, singing or doing something funny, most often set to music. Break My Stride became popular on TikTok earlier this year and has been used in over 800,000 videos. School students have posted videos of themselves dancing to the song. The pop song has the magic to make people feel like dancing. In one TikTok video that was liked 3.5 million times, the creator took a video of his mom sleeping and then photoshopped her into different backgrounds related to the words of the song, such as traveling across the sea to China in the row boat.
"Now with the coming of TikTok, it's like having a hit record all over again with a whole new generation（一代人）," Wilder, 67, told CNN. Break My Stride recently has been on Apple Music's Top 100 songs in over 20 countries.
Break My Stride isn't alone. A number of other artists have seen their songs become popular on TikTok. The success of Lil Nas X's Old Town Road depends heavily on its popularity on TikTok, where the song has been used in 7.5 million videos. The song finished 2019 in the UK as "Song of the Year".
The success of these songs, both old and new, highlights the influence that social media have on arts and culture. TikTok is changing how musicians create and publicize their work.
