What is the ‘YK Niece’ Dance… and is it the Next Griddy?
Anwar Stetson
The next Griddy? The “YK Niece” celebration (or “celly”) is taking over football at all levels and becoming a nationwide trend. The viral TikTok dance is easy enough for anyone to do, but will it surpass the legendary Griddy? Let’s investigate:
Background
YK Niece is an up-and-coming rapper from Atlanta, Georgia. She blew up in the mainstream earlier this year with breakout hit “Whim Whamiee” with former associate Pluto. The song went viral on TikTok. Over the summer, YK Niece collaborated with Grammy-nominated producer Metro Boomin, singing the hook on “Take Me Thru Dere” in August. The following dance, known as the “YK Niece” or “Wham,” has blown up on social media, and now with football players performing the move as a touchdown celebration.
How Do I Do it?
It’s fairly simple. All you have to do is take your dominant arm and thrust it forward, as if you’re cracking a whip or swinging a rope at a rodeo. You get bonus points if you swing your head in a rhythmic and exaggerated manner while doing it. After swinging your arms, you can really bring the house down if you shake your head while adding a breaststroke swimming motion. I can show you better than I can tell you:
College Football Players Doing the YK Niece
Ohio News Anchors Perform the YK Niece
The YK Niece Makes its Way to the Savannah Bananas
What Happened to the Griddy?
“The Griddy” was the previous viral touchdown celebration popularized by All-Pro NFL wide receiver Justin Jefferson. Allen “Li’l Griddy” Davis is a childhood friend of Jefferson’s former teammate, Ja’Marr Chase, and he invented the dance in 2018.
The Griddy involves bending your knees, clicking your heels and crouching forward while throwing up the letter “B” with your hands. It sounds ridiculous to type out, but I doubt there’s an athlete, gamer, or parent in America that hasn’t seen it performed.
After ruling the TD Celly world for years, the Griddy is now “old hat,” though that didn’t stop Justin Jefferson from bringing it back on Monday Night Football last week (photo above). But like all trends, the Griddy has waxed and waned and will soon be relegated to old highlight reels.
The Verdict?
Dance, like all art, is subjective. Different strokes for different folks as they say. Personally, I think the YK Niece is fun, easy, and perfect for today’s TikTok-ified world. (I don’t necessarily mean that as an insult.)
As a football fan, I think most celebrations are all in good fun, and a welcome change from the NFL’s former status as the “No Fun League.” Remember when the league banned basically all celebrations and told scoring players to “act like you’ve been there before”?
Wack.
But with that being said, the YK Niece doesn’t compare to the Griddy. The Griddy takes a decent amount of skill to pull off correctly. The older you get, the harder it is to get down low enough to the ground to pull it off. It distinguishes itself in that way.
The YK Niece feels a bit too easy, and it is not as visually stark. The YK Niece dance also tends to work well only over edits with the song “Take Me Thru Dere.” The lighthearted, nostalgic ode to early ‘10s Atlanta trap brings the dance to life. The groovy, New Orleans-based Griddy fits any situation.
The Griddy was so infamous it became its own “emote” on popular video game Fortnite. The YK Niece has a long way to go before it reaches those heights.
However, in these increasingly divided times, I’m not trying to start a war between the two viral cellys. Let’s all sit back and enjoy our favorite athletes expressing themselves in the end zone. And let’s try not to crack a knee while doing so.