From Bergen to TikTok: The journey of Runaway
Runaway skyrocketed on all platforms in 2021. What happened?
The Norwegian NRK radio channel runs a podcast called “Oppdatert” (=Updated), and
made we aware of one of their episodes, where the host - Ragna - discussed the 2021 #aurorarunaway trend with one of the shows journalists, Irina. She had been investigating the trend that blew up on TikTok in March-April that year, trying to figure out whether or not the whole thing was orchestrated by TikTok and Aurora’s music company. How Irina really did her investigation, I have no idea, but with some imagination we can try to make up her story…Breakfast and the latest news
It was early morning. Irina sat by her kitchen table, eating her breakfast and had her first cup of coffee for the day. As she often did in these quiet mornings, she scrolled through some newsarticles on her phone. It was mostly the same every day; the rise and fall of bank interests, effects of the wars, weather- and climate issues, sports, and updates about the pandemic that was raging the world.
One article in the Norwegian online newspaper VG caught her attention though: “TikTok brings millions of views for Aurora Aksnes”. Irina was fond of Aurora, and thought for herself: That’s nice! Runaway is a nice song, too.
Irina became curious as she read through the article. It claimed some really heavy numbers for Aurora and Runaway. After all, it’d been six years since its release - and it was written by an 11 year old girl from a small place outside of Bergen. Aurora was a star on the rise, that’s true, but Irina considered Aurora to be more as an Indie-artist.
Irina found her pen and paper. She was a jounalist, after all, and she scribbled down some notes from the article:
6th of April, 2021
Spotify now streams the song more than a million times a day, making it into Spotify’s 100th top songs.
112th most popular on Spotify two days ago, 91th yesterday and 80th most popular today.
Summer and autumn last year; about 70.000 plays a day, according to Auroras record label Petroleum.
On TikTok, there are now over 61 million hits on the hashtag #aurorarunaway.
The 13th most popular in the world on the music search service Shazam.
Among the 50 most shared songs on Spotify in a total of 28 countries
Megan Thee Stallion
Irina finished her coffee and packed her notes in her shoulderbag. She had a 20 minutes walk to her office, and she wanted to investigate this further. It was a beautiful sunny day, and she thought the fresh, morning air would help her clear her head. She could feel her stomach churn and her heart beat in excitement. Maybe there was a story here?
There was especially one question that kept creeping into her mind: Was it all a coincidence? A push from her devoted fans? Or was it some work behind the scenes?
As she walked past people and crossed the city’s streets, she pondered an article she remembered reading on Bloomberg about another song who had skyrocketed thanks to TikTok: Savage by Megan Thee Stallion. It won a Grammy this year, and initially, it seemed like people just liked the song and used it in their videos. But then the Bloomberg article revealed that it was all orchestrated. They had pushed it into playlists and advertising banners and made it easy for TikTok-users to find the song to include in their own videos. They came up with challenges, and influencers like Charli D’Amelio and stars like Justin Bieber caught on, leading to its viral success.
Could this be the case with Aurora’s Runaway as well?
Irina ruminated on this as she walked, and she finally made it to her office. Her desk was placed along the wall of the open office space. She had a small basket with the necessary supplies to do her work, but her three computer monitors took up most of the space. She logged on to her account and the screen flickered with the usual pop-ups that indicated the startup process. She found her notebook and placed it in front of her. Apperantly, there was some kind of photo filter that was the root of this trend on TikTok, and she wished to learn more about it. A quick search on internet, and she found the number to Aurora’s management in Bergen. Made Management. She picked up her phone and called.
A few weeks earlier in Indonesia…
Renald Fadli, now 21 years old, sat by his computer. He was just scrolling through some TikToks. He had noticed there was a small trend going on, where people posted silhouttes of themselves. It was quite nice, actually. He had been making video and photo filters for Instagram and TikTok for a couple of years now, and some of them had gained him a massive following on his social platforms. His daily vlog was already posted, and he wondered if he should try to make something out of this silhoutte trend. Maybe something with nature? Or a starry background?
He fiddled around a bit with his softwares until he was satisfied. The background effect was nice with this vibrant and colorful aurora borealis-like scene. He added in the possibilty to customize its colors and brightness. “Mood”, he thought to himself. He had made it so that he could start the recording and let it go for a few seconds before it snapshot him aginst the bright background, and then the filter processed it and turned him into a dark silhoutte onto that background.
“Now - I need some music to go along with it”, he thought, and Auroras song “Runaway” came to his mind. He liked that song, and he thought the mood of it matched his filter quite well. He listened to the song. “…and I was running far away, would I run off the world someday…” - Aurora’s voice filled the room.
“Yes! That’s it! I can use this!”, he decided.
Renald Fadli finished it off and uploaded the filter to TikTok…
Back in Norway
Irina hang up the phone with the manager at Made. They seemed to be quite surprised by how much traction Runaway got these days. It was this filter, made by an Indonesian guy named Renald Fadli, who really had set things in motion. She looked him up on internet and learned that he had quite a big following on Instagram and Tiktok, where he posted daily vlogs about his life and food reviews, among other varietys. He had newly started to create filters for Instagram and TikTok as well.
Made has also told her that Runaway had been somewhat popular before this silhouette-filter showed up. There was this other trend going on last summer and autumn, where people painted their thighs, often in rainbow colors, where this song had been used. Not the same numbers as now, but still up to 70.000 daily streams on Spotify. Irina decided that she wanted to learn more, so she sent a direct message to this Renald Fadli, asking him if he was the one who had made that Runaway filter, and why he had chosen that song. Then she let it go while she waited for his reply. After all, she also had other tasks at hand.
The next day at her office, Irina had recieved an email from Indonesia. It wasn’t from Renald, but apparently he had a social media manager. This guy introduced himself and explained that, yes - Renald Fadli was the one who had made the filter, and that he had chosen Aurora’s Runaway as a backing track because he thought the song was beautiful and that it suited the mood of the filter.
“So it was indeed pure coincidence after all? Just a lucky timing, using a song that was already trending a bit?”, Irina thought.
Irina wasn’t satisfied quite yet. It gnawed on her mind for a few days, all the while noticing that Aurora’s song got wildly more spread across the world. In some countries Runaway made it to the top lists, and it was even the 5th most searched for track on the worlds biggest music search company, Shazam. By now, the papers showed incredible numbers all over the place: The song reached No. 59 on the UK Top 100 chart thanks to the TikTok trend, and more than 723,000 videos had been created using the “Runaway” tag on TikTok, featuring dance routines, nature shots, and personal moments. The song had surpassed 116 million views on YouTube and over 144 million streams on Spotify.
Aurora commented in an interview with NME that she was grateful that people had connected with the song, but that she didn’t focus so much on what happens after the release of her music. Irina had noticed that Aurora did adjust to this trend slightly anyway. She had just released some acoustic versions of Runaway with both piano and guitar arrangements, and there was posted an explaination of the song on the lyrics platform Genius.
Irina made contact with both TikTok and Aurora’s record company. She wanted to know more. She felt a need to know if there was any cooperation between them regarding the sudden success of Auroras Runaway.
The replies she got was rather vague. Both TikTok and the record company confirmed that they have dialogue about the use of music on TikTok, and that they had some tools to increase a song’s poularity. Irina had hoped for more specific answers.
A few days later, Irina recieved a new email from TikTok. It was from a fellow working at the platform’s “Music Team”. He wrote that they had noticed last summer that Aurora’s Runaway had increased in popularity, so they had kept an eye on it. The guy explained that when a song gets popular, they have the tools broaden its audience. It could be to use banners, to include it in certain playlists and to create challenges. Not long ago, this month, they had made contact with Aurora’s team and suggested that Aurora herself should create some hashtags on their social platforms, create some posts, and make a video where she herself used this filter. TikTok was very pleased with the results so far.
Irina finally felt satisfied. There was no big manipulation going on. Aurora and her song had grown organically for a long while, and when it reached a certain point they (TikTok, the record company and Auroras management) had helped the song reach higher levels by giving it some nudges. To Irina, that seemed quite fair. It was their job, after all.
Community Spotlight
aurora_with_her_fans on Instagram
The Queendom with all its Warriors and Weirdos seems to spread their interests in all directions, like the branches of an ancient tree. Climbing this tree, I keep finding new saplings and offshoots sprouting. Some of them seems to be old and wise, much like the tree itself, others are just budding leaves.
The branch I have found today made its first stretch towards the light on the 22nd of September 2022 - And she’s rooted in Italian Soil. Let’s shine the spotlight on this wonderful fan-devoted fan-account.
Back in 2016, Clara was only six years old when she heard Aurora for the first time. Her older sister made her listen to Conqueror, but Clara didn’t quite appreciate it back then. To her, Aurora came out rather wild in the music video, and she went on calling Aurora “The crazy girl”, especially around her sister. It’s easy to understand that the art of music can be hard to understand at such a young age.
Then later, in 2021, Clara had turned 11 years old, and she had finally been allowed to download TikTok on her phone. One of the first songs she heard then, was Runaway, and it was kind of a new discovery for her. She did recognize her from Conqueror, but she still went on to listen to her other songs. That’s how she fell in love with Aurora, and she moved into the Queendom by making her own fan account on Instagram.
I must say, I am quite impressed by how unique and creative her take on her fan account is. Her focus is on the meetings between Aurora and her fans, and she has made a lots of posts showing these touching an beautiful moments. I hope you find the time to check it out and give her a following 😊💚
Final words
Now, this was fun, wasn’t it? Mind now: this story is just fiction, based on facts found on the internet and the podcast
mentioned to me. I know nothing about Irena’s work-routines or how she obtained all the information she provided in the podcast. I just thought it fun to try to present the details in a more story-friendly way. Let me know what you think of this way of presenting information. You can do so in the comments below, or by hittting that reply button in your email browser. I really like to hear from you.I did get a request about a week ago. I was asked if I could dive into Aurora’s songwriting process. I think it was a nice input, so I have already started to gather the information I have at hand. That will be the topic of my next newsletter 😊
Until then: Have a day!
Rune
Sources
Bhatt, S. (2021, May 31). How the ‘Runaway Aurora’ filter became wildly popular on social amid these sombre times2. The Economic Times. Retrieved 09.10.2024 from https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-bytes/how-runaway-aurora-filter-became-the-new-black-on-social-amid-these-sombre-times/articleshow/83093538.cms
Larisha, P. (2021, April 10). Aurora’s ‘Runaway’ Scales The Charts Thanks To TikTok. Retrieved 10.10.2024 from Udiscovermusic URL: https://www.udiscovermusic.com/news/aurora-runaway-tiktok/
NRK Oppdatert (2021, May 05). Slik ble en gammel Aurora-låt en verdenshit. Retrieved 02.10.2024 from https://radio.nrk.no/podkast/oppdatert/sesong/202105/l_5f308ef6-24b2-4a07-b08e-f624b28a0713
Talseth, T. (2021, April 6). TikTok-suksess gir milliontall for Aurora Aksnes. VG. Retrieved 08.10.2024 from https://www.vg.no/rampelys/i/gWl9Rq/tiktok-suksess-gir-milliontall-for-aurora-aksnes
Talseth. T. (2021, April 13). Aurora Aksnes gjør nye byks på Spotify og Shazam. Retrieved 10.10.2024 from VG. URL: https://www.vg.no/rampelys/i/Qm4mr4/aurora-aksnes-gjoer-nye-byks-paa-spotify-og-shazam
I wonder how you got aware of this podcast ... hehe, j/k ;)
I am quit relieved in the end that it is organic growth with some nudges along the way (you got me on the edge with your announcement of the subject). Like you said, it is their job to promote her music.
Like a week ago I connected to "aurora_with_her_fans" with the picture of Aurora with me in Brussels! And now I am looking forward to the next issue with the songwriting process. Thank you Rune!