The best sound effects on TikTok

TikTok has dominated the internet for the last few years and turned virtual nobodies into celebrities and social media influencers overnight. Naturally, everyone wants to become the app’s next viral sensation, leading many to become experts on the various functions and controls the app offers in an attempt to give their next TikTok vid the best chance of landing on the coveted For You page.

It used to be that new dances or skits were what drew followers to a creator’s TikTok, but now cooking tutorials and simple backgrounds accompanied by popular sounds or songs are sometimes all that’s needed to catch people’s attention. That said, you can’t just place any sound or song on a post and expect to gain millions of followers immediately. First you have to explore which sounds are the most popular, as some of them have a tendency to catch people’s attention more than others.

Here are some of the best sound effects on TikTok⏤so far.

Rachel voicemail 

Though this sound shot to popularity in 2020, it actually originates from a 2018 clip shared to Twitter. The vulgar clip, in which a woman calls and threatens her boss after taking her off of a work schedule, seems to have been originally sent to the wrong recipient by mistake, which led to it getting shared on Twitter in the first place more than a year ago. The shorter version of the call has been remixed with upbeat music and has yielded nearly 800,000 videos on the platform. 

“Make You Mine”

This song, released by the Cincinnati boy band PUBLIC in 2019, appears as teens show off their relationships on social media (though it’s often used as a joke between two people who aren’t even romantically involved) by including the song’s lyrics, “Put your hand in mine, I want to be with you all the time.” So far, “Make You Mine” has appeared in 787,500 videos since it made its way to TikTok, which has helped the music video rack up nearly 2 million views since it was posted in Oct. 2019.

Delfino Plaza

If you’re a Nintendo fan, then odds are you’ve heard this sound before. The popular TikTok effect actually originates from Nintendo’s 2002 GameCube release Super Mario Sunshine. Although the song has been remixed, the original can be heard when users visit the “Delfino Plaza” area of the game. So far, the song has led to the creation of more than 639,000 TikToks.

“I’m Just A Kid”

Incorporating the lyrics from Simple Plan’s 2002 single “I’m Just A Kid,” this sound is often used to share some of the hardships teens go through as “I’m just a kid and life is a nightmare” plays through the video. It’s also found popularity among teen parents who use the song to talk about their experiences having children at a young age. So far, more than 27,000 videos have used the Simple Plan song. 

“She’s Really Good”

This sound, which is already been used almost 60,000 times on TikTok, is a way for teens to show off their hidden talents and incorporates the line “She’s really good” from the 2008 Disney Channel movie Camp Rock starring Demi Lovato and the Jonas Brothers. The line is actually delivered by Lovato’s character Mitchie as she watches Allyson Stoner’s character Caitlyn show off her DJ skills. 

“Why You Gotta Be Like That?”

Using musician Audrey Mika’s chorus from her 2019 track of the same name, TikTok creators have made some 618,300 videos using the song since it was posted on the platform. Originally, the sound was used in a TikTok about girls who change their voices around guys.

“Don’t Be Suspicious”

TikTok creators are fond of using the popular “Don’t be suspicious” sound when they’re being sneaky in their videos. The sound actually comes straight from the series finale of the NBC sitcom Parks & Recreation. When the sound is first heard on the show, Mona-Lisa Saperstein (Jenny Slate) and her twin brother, Jean-Ralphio (Ben Schwartz) are watching Jean-Ralphio’s fake funeral as part of an insurance scam and break into a dance while they sing “Don’t be suspicious.”

So far, the most popular video that uses the sound has 3.2 million views on TikTok and features a girl painting the walls of her room black while the audio of the clip plays. Her mother then walks in to find the walls had been painted. TikTokers now use the sound in a range of “suspicious” videos, from people sneaking a llama into their house to someone pulling tickets out of an arcade game. The sound has become so popular that it’s been used in 384,000 videos since it was first posted.

“Mama, I’m a Criminal”

Britney Spears’ song “Criminal” from her 2011 album Femme Fatale recently found love on TikTok in 2020, but not necessarily for the way it was intended. On the track, Spears sings, “But mama, I’m in love with a criminal.” The TikTok version, however, omits the “in love with” part to produce an all new confession: “But mama, I’m a criminal.” The sound is usually associated with videos where teens joke about shoplifting and other minor offenses. It’s so popular that it’s been used to make nearly 20,000 TikToks.

“I Just Did A Bad Thing”

When TikTok creators make dramatic changes to their personal appearances and post them to TikTok, there’s a good chance you may hear this popular sound play. Using the lyrics from musician Bill Wurtz’s 2018 single “Just Did A Bad Thing”, creators have posted more than 1.5 million videos where the lyrics, “Just did a bad thing / I regret the thing I did / And you’re wondering what it is / I’ll tell you what I did / I did a bad thing” play in the background while displaying a teen’s new hairdo or tattoo.

Choose Your Character

This sound used to be instrumental in the beginning of numerous fighting games, but it’s now a common component of TikTok. In one video, a creator uses the sound to ask her followers to decide which character they should cosplay as: the superhero, the wizard, the Barbie, the devil, the princess, the country girl, the unicorn, or a dog, with the remix to Super Smash Brothers Melee main menu theme song accompanying it. So far, the Super Smash Brothers Melee remix sound has been used 538,300 times since it was first uploaded to TikTok.

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