Nickelback has been going viral on TikTok over the past few days and my millennial mind is have a little trouble computing the phenomenon. I didn’t know the band popular for such hits as “How You Remind Me” and “Rockstar” was capable of generating this much viral attention, particularly not on the Gen Z platform TikTok.
OK, I am aware people of all ages use TikTok, and some of the women posting the viral videos look like they were probably also interested in Nickelback during the band’s heyday and in the years beyond. That’s right, it’s not even “How You Remind Me” that’s capturing the attention of viral video creators, it’s the song “She Keeps Me Up,” a 2015 Nickelback song that only charted in Canada.
In fact, Nickelback recently went viral after sharing a compilation of women giving themselves a makeover to the viral disco-themed track. (Disco's really been on trend lately.) The videos first started appearing on the social media platform back in September and usually feature a TikTok star pre-makeup suddenly looking glam.
@alyssapallant11 A true nickelback fan will know more than just this song
♬ She Keeps Me Up - Nickelback
It wasn’t just one video that went viral, either. This one from Brittany Scovel at Lake of the Ozarks last month nabbed more than 1.6 million views at the time of this writing.
@brittany.scovel ♬ She Keeps Me Up - Nickelback
More videos in a similar vein also went viral. It also seems there may be a lot of crossover between Nickelback fans and cowboy hat fans, but maybe I'm just reading into things. (No, I'm pretty sure there's something to this, as Blake Shelton has referred to himself as the "new Nickelback" and he's also into cowboy hats.)
@notyouravergbarbie ♬ She Keeps Me Up - Nickelback
The band later caught on to the trend this week after the videos started going viral last month – indicating to me they don’t spend all that much time on TikTok– and shouted out the ladies who made “She Keeps Me Up” a viral song. You can see their thank you from Twitter below, which juxtaposes some of the ladies involved in the trend with the band’s own music video for the song.
Thanks for all the love for "She Keeps Me Up". That one was pretty unexpected!📸: @alyssapalant11, Steph, Brittany Scovel, and Abigail Jackson pic.twitter.com/25YOR5tCU1October 11, 2022
While this viral TikTok moment might be fleeting like the Minions trend and others that came before, the timing couldn’t be better. The Canadian group released a new single back in September called “San Quentin” ahead of the release of their 10th studio album. While not as popular or lauded as in their heyday (the group won some Grammys for Hard Rock between 2003 and 2010), Nickelback still tours regularly (or did pre-pandemic) and frontman Chad Kroeger has popped up in projects like Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives as well as episodes of Jimmy Kimmel Live! and The Ellen DeGeneres Show in recent years. Not to mention that viral clip of Fred Savage and Deadpool singing "How You Remind Me."
The new album Get Rollin’ will be released on November 18, 2022.
