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Erm... What actually is the Adult Swim trend on TikTok?

Photo credit: NurPhoto - Getty Images
Photo credit: NurPhoto - Getty Images

If you've been on TikTok at all within the last few days, theres a 99.9% chance you'll have seen the Adult Swim trend that's quite literally taken over the app. While most TikTok trends last shorter than the 15 second videos themselves, it seems that with 1.1 billion uses of the hashtag “adultswim" (Forbes), the trend is here to stay. But what actually is Adult Swim?

To answer that question, we need to do a quick rewind. Back in the early 2000s, Cartoon Network launched the Adult Swim segment. Adult Swim featured adult-friendly content, like Family Guy, between the hours of 8pm and 6am. In between the TV shows and adverts, the channel showed short clips called "bumpers" or "bumps". The clips played on the idea that the TV segment was a no-kids-allowed zone.

According to Forbes, "the bumps became synonymous with Adult Swim programming as they often seemed like short art films. The bumps featured bizarre jokes and scenarios through text, time-lapse, b-roll and other avant-garde camera work and editing."

The bumps would always end with the words "Adult Swim" or "[AS]", but how those words appeared constantly changed – some clips showed the letters as sunburn on a back or as steam on a mirror.

So how did the Adult Swim trend come to be? TikTokers can thank user Vano3000 for that. Vano3000 essentially kicked off the trend after posting the app's very first Adult Swim clip, along with a remix of BADBADNOTGOOD's "Time Moves Slow" track. The original clip shows Vano3000 eating a sandwich, and just a few days later he shared another, which said: "This sound works with everything...Try it out. [Adult Swim]"



Speaking to Forbes, Adult Swim's vice president said: “We've been creating bumps on our air for over a decade. To see people having as much fun with them as we have over the years is incredible.”

So there you have it... until the next trend that is.

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