SaWaDiKa Dance Trend Takes Over TikTok

Hero image is a real TikTok video still from LISA’s own official account (@lalalalisa_m), posted to promote “SaWaDiKa.” Credit: @lalalalisa_m/TikTok.

The SaWaDiKa dance trend has taken over TikTok in the weeks since BLACKPINK’s LISA dropped her new single, and the choreography is still spreading. Dance tutorial accounts are still posting fresh breakdowns of LISA’s moves, the song is still charting on Billboard weeks after release, and the TikTok hashtags built around it keep pulling in new videos daily.

• What it is: the SaWaDiKa dance trend, built around LISA’s rap-forward single “SaWaDiKa,” released September 3, 2026, as the lead track from her upcoming EP “PRESS PLAY”
• Why it’s a TikTok story specifically: LISA posted her own choreography clips directly to TikTok to promote the single, and independent creators have been posting step-by-step tutorial breakdowns of the routine ever since, under hashtags like #SaWaDiKa and #LISA_SaWaDiKa
• The numbers: the “SaWaDiKa” music video hit 100 million YouTube views in roughly two days and four hours, the fastest any music video reached that mark in 2026
• Still charting: as of September 23, 2026, “SaWaDiKa” is in its second week on the Billboard Hot 100, making it only the third LISA solo song ever to chart for multiple weeks
• What’s coming next: LISA’s “PRESS PLAY” EP arrives October 23, 2026, alongside a Toronto-premiered documentary and a Las Vegas residency announcement, all of which are likely to keep feeding the TikTok trend

What is “SaWaDiKa,” and why is TikTok obsessed?

“SaWaDiKa” is BLACKPINK member LISA’s new solo single, released September 3, 2026 in the US (September 4 in Korea), through RCA Records. The title stylizes “sawatdee ka,” the polite greeting Thai women use to say hello, and the song doubles as a tribute to LISA’s home country. It’s the lead single from her upcoming EP “PRESS PLAY,” due out October 23, 2026.

Musically, “SaWaDiKa” is a return to LISA’s rap roots after some of her more pop-leaning recent releases, produced by Thom Bridges and the songwriting duo Ojivolta. The music video, directed by Korean filmmaker Bang Jae Yeob, was filmed in Bangkok, and LISA’s label ran a global marketing campaign built around the word “hello” appearing in 11 different languages, including billboards posted around the city ahead of release.

What makes the SaWaDiKa dance trend specifically a TikTok story, not just a music story, is how directly LISA used the platform to launch it. She posted her own promotional clips to her official TikTok account (@lalalalisa_m) in the days around release, including full-body dance shots filmed on a rooftop against the Bangkok skyline. Those posts are what independent dance creators picked up and started breaking down into tutorials within days.

Inside the SaWaDiKa dance trend on TikTok

The SaWaDiKa dance trend didn’t start as a separate challenge invented by fans from scratch. It started with LISA’s own choreography, posted directly to her TikTok account, and it snowballed from there. Her post captioned simply “SaWaDiKa,” tagged with #LISA and #LISA_SaWaDiKa, has pulled in millions of likes and tens of thousands of comments.

@lalalalisa_m

👋 SaWaDiKa #LISA #SaWaDiKa #LISA_SaWaDiKa

♬ SaWaDiKa – LISA

From there, the trend split into the usual TikTok dance-trend playbook: full-length cover attempts, slowed-down step breakdowns, “mirrored tutorial” videos filmed against plain walls so learners can follow along, and reaction videos to the official choreography clip itself. The dedicated sound page for “SaWaDiKa” on TikTok shows a steady stream of new posts using the track, weeks after release, which is exactly the kind of sustained activity that separates a real ongoing trend from a single viral moment that faded after a few days.

Part of why the SaWaDiKa dance trend has legs is that LISA is already one of the platform’s most dance-literate stars, as a member of BLACKPINK widely regarded as one of K-pop’s strongest dancers. Her choreography carries built-in credibility with TikTok’s dance community in a way a random viral sound rarely does. Creators aren’t just dancing to a catchy beat, they’re specifically trying to nail moves associated with someone whose dancing is the actual selling point.

The numbers behind SaWaDiKa’s viral run

The scale of “SaWaDiKa’s” launch is a big part of why the TikTok trend caught on so fast. The official music video pulled in 70.8 million YouTube views in its first 24 hours, the biggest 24-hour music video debut of 2026 and the second-biggest ever recorded by a solo artist, according to Soompi’s tracking of the video’s performance.

It kept climbing from there. The video crossed 100 million YouTube views in approximately two days and four hours, per Soompi and Bandwagon Asia’s reporting, making it the fastest music video of 2026 to hit that milestone and the second-fastest solo music video to do it in YouTube’s history. The only faster solo debut on record belongs to LISA herself: her 2021 solo track “LALISA” opened with 73.6 million views in 24 hours, just ahead of “SaWaDiKa’s” 70.8 million. According to industry tracker InMusic, that makes LISA the first solo artist ever to clear 70 million first-day YouTube views twice.

On Spotify, “SaWaDiKa” opened at No. 13 on the platform’s Daily Global chart with 2.787 million streams and No. 53 on the US chart with 466,000 streams, the biggest single-day Spotify debut by a K-pop soloist in 2026. It also debuted at No. 1 on Apple Music’s Worldwide iTunes Songs chart. None of those numbers are TikTok metrics directly, but they’re the underlying reason the SaWaDiKa dance trend had an audience primed and waiting the moment LISA posted her own choreography, and they help explain why the SaWaDiKa dance trend spread as fast as it did.

The song has real chart staying power too, not just a viral spike that faded. “SaWaDiKa” debuted at No. 69 on the Billboard Hot 100 in its first week. As of September 23, 2026, it’s spending a second week on the chart at No. 93, according to Soompi’s Billboard coverage, making it only the third LISA solo song ever to chart on the Hot 100 for more than one week, following “MONEY” in 2021 and “BORN AGAIN” with Doja Cat and RAYE in 2025.

On Billboard’s global charts, the song moved from No. 13 to No. 35 on the Global Excl. U.S. chart and from No. 23 to No. 54 on the Global 200 between its first and second weeks. That’s a normal second-week decline for a new single, but landing on multiple Billboard charts at all, more than two weeks after release, is exactly the kind of sustained interest that keeps a TikTok dance trend fed with new participants rather than letting it die out after the first week of hype.

Creators are already remixing the choreography

Beyond LISA’s own posts, independent creators have turned the SaWaDiKa dance trend into a full tutorial-and-cover ecosystem, not just a passive listening trend. Dance-tutorial accounts have posted slowed-down, count-by-count breakdowns of the choreography specifically so casual users can learn it, a format that only shows up once a dance is popular enough to be worth teaching.

@andydandyy96

New dance tutorial for LISA’s new song SaWaDiKa! 🙏🏼⚡️ ​I broke down the choreo step-by-step (slow & real speed) so you can get it down! Save this to practice later and tag me in your video so I can check it out and leave a like 👀🔥 ​Which choreography should I break down next? Let me know in the comments 👇 ​#SaWaDiKa #LISA_SaWaDiKa #LISA #DanceTutorial #SaWaDiKaTutorial

♬ SaWaDiKa – LISA

Plenty of non-professional creators have joined in too, not just dedicated dance-tutorial accounts. Casual videos recreating small pieces of the choreography, like the finger-frame gesture LISA uses in the official clip, show up throughout the hashtag alongside the more polished breakdowns, which is a real sign of a trend spreading past its original dance-focused audience.

The pattern is the same one that made TikTok dance trends into a genre unto themselves: an artist posts choreography, a handful of creators turn it into teachable content within days, and the sound page becomes a rolling archive of covers ranging from polished dancers to first-time attempts. It’s the same lifecycle this site has tracked before, from Brazil’s Passinho do Jamal trend to full album promotional pushes like Miley Cyrus’s recent TikTok campaign for “Bass Persuades”, just built here around a K-pop artist’s own dance background instead of a song’s lyrics or a separate creator’s original move.

Not LISA’s first TikTok dance trend

The SaWaDiKa dance trend is a big moment, but it’s not a one-off for LISA. Her 2024 single “Rockstar,” the lead single from her debut solo album “Alter Ego,” generated its own real TikTok activity under hashtags like #RockstarChallenge and #LisaRockstar, with creators posting choreography practice videos and full covers of the routine. “Rockstar” itself was a genuine commercial hit, debuting at No. 1 on Billboard’s Global Excl. U.S. chart with 94.2 million streams and peaking at No. 70 on the Hot 100, her highest-charting solo entry on that chart before “SaWaDiKa” came along.

Her earlier “Money,” from 2021, followed a similar pattern: dance covers, transformation edits, and mirrored tutorial videos that circulated on TikTok and Instagram Reels for months after release, well past the song’s initial chart run. The throughline across all three songs is the same one driving the current SaWaDiKa dance trend: LISA releases a song built around a specific, learnable piece of choreography, posts it herself, and TikTok’s dance community takes it from there.

What’s different this time is the speed and scale. Unlike the SaWaDiKa dance trend, “Rockstar” and “Money” built their TikTok followings gradually, over weeks. The SaWaDiKa dance trend had tutorial accounts posting breakdowns within days of release, riding the same wave that pushed the song’s music video to a 2026 viral-speed record.

LISA Debuted the Choreography Live at the 2026 VMAs

The SaWaDiKa dance trend got a fresh jolt on September 27, 2026, when LISA gave the song’s first-ever live television performance at the MTV Video Music Awards, the same VMAs this site previewed days earlier. She opened with martial-arts-inspired choreography backed by a full team of dancers, rode a life-sized tuk-tuk onstage mid-performance, and set the whole number against red-lit visuals nodding to both the song’s Bangkok skyline music video and her own Thai heritage, according to Billboard and The Hollywood Reporter’s reviews of the show.

A newly-debuted television performance like this one is exactly the kind of moment that tends to spark a fresh round of reaction clips and stage-inspired covers on TikTok, on top of the choreography tutorials the SaWaDiKa dance trend was already generating, real, immediate proof that the song’s TikTok momentum hasn’t slowed down even as it moves onto bigger stages.

What’s next for LISA

“SaWaDiKa” isn’t a standalone release, it’s the opening move in a genuinely busy stretch for LISA that’s likely to keep the SaWaDiKa dance trend fed with new content. Her EP “PRESS PLAY” arrives October 23, 2026, and if the dance-tutorial pattern around “SaWaDiKa” holds, each new track is a plausible new wave of TikTok choreography content once the full project lands.

She’s also got a documentary, “Always Lalisa,” which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2026 and is set for a wider theatrical release on October 12, 2026, just ahead of the EP. According to Sony Music Entertainment Korea, LISA is also set to open a Las Vegas residency called “VIVA LA LISA” at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace in November 2026, reportedly making her the first K-pop artist to headline a solo residency at that venue.

None of that guarantees the SaWaDiKa dance trend keeps growing at its current pace, trends cool off, and a song several weeks past its release is already past the point where most viral audio loses steam. But between a full EP still to come, a documentary rollout, and a residency announcement all landing within about six weeks of each other, LISA has more scheduled moments to reignite interest than most artists get from a single single.

Quick answers

What is the SaWaDiKa dance trend on TikTok? It’s the wave of dance covers, tutorials, and reaction videos built around LISA’s choreography for her single “SaWaDiKa,” which she posted directly to her own TikTok account around the song’s September 3, 2026 release.

Who is LISA? LISA (born Lalisa Manobal) is a member of the K-pop group BLACKPINK and one of the genre’s biggest solo stars in her own right. “SaWaDiKa” is her latest solo single, ahead of her upcoming EP “PRESS PLAY.”

How well is “SaWaDiKa” actually performing? Very well by any real measure: 70.8 million YouTube views in 24 hours, 100 million views in about two days and four hours (the fastest music video to do so in 2026), and a second week on the Billboard Hot 100 as of September 23, 2026.

Is this a real dance challenge or just a viral song? Both. The song is charting on its own merits, but the SaWaDiKa dance trend specifically, tutorials, covers, and mirrored breakdowns of LISA’s own choreography, is a distinct, ongoing layer on top of the song’s streaming numbers.

When does LISA’s next project come out? Her EP “PRESS PLAY,” led by “SaWaDiKa,” is scheduled for release on October 23, 2026.

This article’s account of the SaWaDiKa dance trend draws on reporting from multiple outlets tracking the song’s real-time performance. Reporting on chart performance and viral milestones draws on Soompi’s Billboard coverage and Soompi’s report on the video’s 100-million-view milestone, corroborated by Bandwagon Asia. Production and release details draw on Billboard Philippines and Korea JoongAng Daily.