TikToks singing sea shanties are going massively viral. Why?
Social Media Your #ForYou page: Charli D’Amelio. “My #ForYou page? “Wellerman” duets The morning of Jan.12, I woke up with a simple phrase stuck in my head: “Soon may the wellerman come, the wellerman come, to bring us sugar and tea and rum,” or the refrain of the sea shanty that’s been all over my TikTok for what feels like months. Little did I know that Jan.12 was the fateful day that the rest of the internet would catch up to sea shanty TikTok, thanks to a now-viral tweet featuring two brothers singing “Wellerman,” one of the more popular sea shanties I quoted above. TikToks of people singing sea shanties — songs sung by sailors and other seafaring laborers to help them synchronize movements, says the BBC — have proliferated on alt TikTok for months now. Often, there’s some kind of self-aware caption (“Your #ForYou page: Charli D’Amelio. My #ForYou page? Sea Shanties”) that acknowledges that, well, it’s a bit of a niche interest, isn’t it? Steam for the current sea-shanty renaissance began gathering a few weeks ago, when Scottish musician Nathan Evans posted a version singing “Wellerman.
