A group of boys, probably under 18, approaches the entrance of a cinema, any one. They make tickets for Minions: the rise of Gru and they enter in the room, among the gazes of those present. Nothing strange, except for the clothing: they all wear a suit, complete with a tie.
It is a scene that you happen to witness these days on TikTok: it is a trend called Gentle Minions, a sort of challenge that involves going to see the second chapter of the spin off of Despicable Me dressed in an extremely elegant way. As is often the case with these viral phenomena, no one really knows how it started either who was the first to get the idea. But the format works and the related hashtag has already surpassed 20 million views.
According to the reconstruction of Varietyone of the first to publish a video on the subject was the Australian Bill Hirst, who with a content posted last June 28 has accumulated (to date) about 32 million views.
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According to US media reports, the trend was between reasons which led to the second chapter of the sui saga Minions (arrives in Italy on August 18) to break a record that had lasted for 11 years. The film, in fact, raised $ 125 million between Canada and the United States in a single weekend: This is the best 4th of July holiday debut in the history of American cinema.
However, not everything went smoothly during the screenings: in some cases, the virality of the phenomenon brought people not really interested in the film into the room, so much so that a cinema in Great Britain has banned entry to spectators dressed in elegant clothes.
Whatever the motivation of those who go to the cinema, the videos have also attracted the attention of Universal, the production company behind the film dei Minions. The historic company based in Los Angeles dedicated a tweet to the phenomenon: “To you who go to the cinema in elegant clothes: we are with you and we love you”.
But how did such a particular game get so widespread? There are two possible interpretations, one social and one technical. On the one hand, as noted by some US analysts, there is the attraction of Generation Z for a saga that characterized their childhood: the first film of despicable Me it came out in 2010, when many of today’s 18-year-olds were little more than children. Therefore, an extremely strong driver like the nostalgiawhich made the new release such an opportunity to be honored with an elegant dress.
On the other side, there is (for a change) the TikTok algorithm, able to distribute that content to people who, in one way or another, had already shown an interest in the film or its characters. This amplifies the effectiveness of the message: it is more likely that if you already have me like i MinionsI am driven to participate in a trend that affects them.
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The box office result of Minions: the rise of Gru it made a bit of ears prick up in Hollywood and beyond. Especially since it was obtained in a historical period in which cinemas strugglereturning from the difficulties of the pandemic and from a crisis from which it seems increasingly difficult to get out.
Effectively, what happened with i Minions recalls a number of occasions when TikTok and its algorithm were able to target people’s tastes and (to some extent) change popular culture and our relationship to entertainment. It happens frequently with music, just think of phenomena such as Poor Seagull or that, even more recent, of the cumbia, made a comeback thanks to an effect released by the Bytedance platform.
The challenge for cinema now is to try to drive this virality. The model could come from streaming and products like the last season of Stranger Things. The Netflix series is a product that spans several platforms, from TikTok sound of the soundtrack Running up that hillused in over 2 million videos to date, up to the dedicated playlist on Spotify. A model, this, already experimented also by the record industries, which constantly analyze social networks (and TikTok in particular) testing the sounds and diffusion potential of pop artists’ singles.