Introduction

The Introduction begins with an overview of the Renegade dance’s popularity and the major players who made the dance challenge go viral—namely, TikTok sensation Charli D’Amelio who is the app’s most-followed account, and Georgia teen Jalaiah Harmon who created the dance but wasn’t given any credit for it until the Dubsmash community mobilized around her. The story of the Renegade dance challenge, D’Amelio, and Harmon serves as an entry point into a conversation about the teen artists of color in this book, whom the book labels “Renegades.” Riffing off the viral “Renegade” dance to K-Camp’s “Lottery,” the book reappropriates the term to embody the nuanced ways that Dubsmash users, or self-professed Dubsmashers, use digital hip hop culture and platforms to push again the pervasive Whiteness in mainstream US pop culture, as evidenced on apps such as TikTok. Renegades take up visual and sonic space on social media apps to self-fashion identity, form supportive digital communities, and exert agency to take up space that is often denied to them in other facets of their lives. The Introduction continues with a review of extant literature in social media and youth identity formation, with a particular focus on how Black teens engage with digital spaces. From there, it lays the groundwork for a theory of “Renegades.”