In January 2021, Kayla Mallari, a 34-year-old dancer from Southern California, unexpectedly became the main character of attack on Titan Fan base. A 2014 YouTube video of her dancing in cosplay went viral on TikTok with the footage showing Mallari performing attack on Titan Hip-hop routine for Jason Derulo’s “Talk Dirty to Me”.
This wasn’t the first time this performance went viral – the dance gained some notoriety in the attack on Titan Community after it was posted on YouTube in 2014 – but nothing could have prepared Mallari for what happened when the video landed on TikTok. The platform is known for quickly getting content to a wide audience and instantly catapulting someone into a celebrity within an online community who can have an indelible impact on their life – regardless of whether that is the person’s intention.
That is exactly what happened to Mallari. Even a year after her TikTok virality began, she is still feeling its effects. Her video spawned thousands of imitators and duets, garnered millions of views, and made Hanges dance against the unlikely pairing of “Talk Dirty” an internet touchpoint for many attack on Titan Fans.
Mallari is the co-founder of The Corps Dance Crew, an Anaheim-based cosplay dance group that she founded with best friend Sonali Samarasena in 2013 under her original name, The Survey Corps. At that time, attack on Titan had only recently started airing its first season, but Mallari was instantly addicted to the show, where the last humans of mankind live behind walls to protect themselves from monstrous titans. Since the series debut, it has become a global phenomenon, as well a beacon of controversy, but the discourse has not dampened the reach of the show. Parrot analysis reported that attack on Titan was the most popular television series in the United States for the week from January 31 to February. February 26, 2021 – At the same time, Mallari’s TikTok went viral for the first time.
Although Mallari and Samarasena named their dance crew after the military branch, the attack on TitanServing the main characters, the duo never intended to incorporate anime into their performances. But after they started performing by that name, people kept asking me, ‘Well, if your name is The Survey Corps, why don’t you guys do something? attack on Titan
The Corps Dance Crew debuted your first attack on Titan to adjust at the Ultimate Brawl XIV hip-hop competition in April 2014. The six-minute performance covered the basic plot of attack on Titan‘s first season starring Mallari as Hange, a member of the Survey Corps who has an intense obsession with studying the series’ monstrous titans. The set was a hit with the Ultimate Brawl crowd and on YouTube, where it was viewed over 3 million times.
After the success of the performance, The Corps Dance Crew was asked to make a 30-minute version of theirs attack on Titan plays at the Anime Expo 2014 in Los Angeles in July. When considering how to expand the set, Mallari choreographed a group number that went along with the introduction of Levi, a commander in on stage attack on Titan‘s Survey Corps, played by Mallaris friend and corps dancer Rosten Zeon Carmona.
Mallari selected Jason Derulo’s 2013 hit “Talk Dirty to Me” with 2 Chainz for the set. If you lived through 2013 then you know how devastatingly inevitable was Derulo’s catchy tune, especially when visiting places where stranger shooting and crunching were the primary activities. The wild horniness of the lyrics – “Our discussions do not last long, but you know what is” – couldn’t be more different than the straightforward, disciplined Levi, and that’s exactly why Mallari chose him. “It’s supposed to be ironic.” The fact that Carmonas Levi with the iconic grooming outfit and spent the first part of the dance cleaning up with a broom, which adds an extra level of humor.
A two-part Fan recording of the extended set was released on YouTube in July 2014. The second video in which the two and a half minute “talk dirty” dance, quickly attracted attention within the attack on Titan Fan base; Over the years it has risen to nearly four million views and has more recent re-posts of the performance on YouTube clocked in over 10 million calls. At the time, the overwhelmingly positive response was centered on Carmona’s performance as Levi. (Carmona’s prop work with the broom made the Simps especially wild.) But time goes by quickly and memes move faster, so after the initial hype subsided, the Corps dance crew moved on and the attack on Titan Fandom, too, apparently. This is why Mallari and her Corps colleagues were so shocked when the dance went viral on TikTok over seven years later.
“The strange thing was that it wasn’t about Levi,” Mallari recalled. “Everyone centered it around Hange.”
In TikTok, the user @paris_dela cut all the other dancers out of the picture so that the only focus was on Mallari. They added an overlay of text on the video that said the Hange cosplayer’s dancing would fix your bad day. The video sparked a new wave of love for the dance “Talk Dirty” and in particular Mallari’s energetic performance in it. “I think that’s because Hange would do that. They would give everything in this dance ”, TikToker, stunt woman and Hange cosplayer Julia Maggio (@juliastunts
The interactive character of TikTok catapulted the dance “Talk Dirty” back to virality. “Everyone went crazy and then my entire For You Page filled up and piled up hanging out,” said Ary, a SCAD student and TikToker, of his account @ijustwannabeapenguin, consists of a mixture of anime cosplay and original art. Users started Do duets, Fan edits from Mallari, and animated versions of the dance. Many other Hange cosplayers stepped in front of the camera to make their own TikToks that performed Mallari’s choreography. And of course simping soon followed. “There were a lot of comments that […] said: ‘Step on me, hang.’ And I think, uh, no, I won’t, ”said an amused Mallari.
While “Talk Dirty” hasn’t become a massive TikTok trend (there are fewer than 5,000 videos on the associated audio), there is still a cult audience for “the hang dance”, especially when Mallari is involved . The day after the original TikTok was released, Mallari posted a duet in which she jumped along with 2.2 million views of the old film material. She posted a TikTok of hers later that day perform the dance from cosplay, and received a massive 6.5 million views. But it seemed like fans wouldn’t be satisfied until she donned Hanges ODM gear. So, Mallari told fans in February that if the Corps Dance Crew’s official TikTok account reached 300,000 followers, they would bring their Hange cosplay back. When the goal was reached in March, her next “Talk Dirty” video shot up to 6.7 million views. She continued to publish Hange content throughout 2021, including an August TikTok in which she ran away jokingly from those who ask them to do the dance all over again.
Other creators within the attack on Titan community also found their followers asking them to jump on the micro-trend and had similar successes with their own posts. Maggio, who went viral for it another attack on Titan
The lingering craze for the Talk Dirty dance in the seven and a half years since it first performed and the year it went viral on TikTok stems from the “harmony between the dancer and Hange,” explained Ary. A passionate and curious member of the Survey Corps, Hange has an intensity about him that “kind of scares people off. But it’s alright cause you think I don’t care I’m doing my own thing, ”said Mallari. This no-fucks attitude can be liberating and exciting, which for many cosplayers is the underlying allure of hang cosplay and the hang dance.
“It felt powerful,” Ary said of the doing a simplified version the choreography “Talk Dirty” in October. “In the short part where the beat drops, you can feel the power. You feel in the center [is] on you and i guess that’s what [Mallari] also felt at this moment. “
Mallari wanted to convey precisely this power in her original performance. She was so successful at embodying the beloved character that she has now become synonymous with Hange for a large portion of The Corps’ 462,000 TikTok followers.
“I feel like I’m in permanent Disney mode,” said Mallari, referring to the strict guidelines on how Disney theme park employees must behave at work. “Everyone will always see everything I do as a slope, which is by no means negative. But it means that if I ever do anything outside of Hange, people will be kicked out. ”
Though she never set out to do that recognition, Mallari has made it her business to be known online as Hange and is only grateful for what Talk Dirty has done for her and for the Corps. “The beauty of it is that it has given us the clout on social media” to consider for more opportunity and visibility in the dance industry, Mallari said. Since it was the first time the advanced attack on Titan The 2014-based The Corps appears annually at the Anime Expo and has recurring appearances at the San Diego Comic-Con, WonderCon, and other major events in the convention circuit. “It opened many doors for us that were opened before. Now they are wide open. “
With attack on Titan‘s final season, which airs this winter (premiering January 9th), hang cosplayers like Maggio and GiGi are planning to do the Talk Dirty choreography again, but Mallari isn’t so sure. “The idea of rethinking old stuff is very difficult,” she said, noting that her focus is on current sets. She also added, “I don’t want to spoil the first time too.” But Maggio insisted that regardless of whether Mallari returns to Talk Dirty, dance will “forever be a part of” attack on Titan Community. “