TikTok's 'when you know the words to the song, sing along' trend, explained

It's summertime, which means road trips, long nights with friends, and family vacations. Thankfully, TikTok's latest trend was seemingly designed for those types of gatherings.

TikTok has started a singalong trend that feels like the sort of thing siblings would invent in a car ride down to the shore. In fact the meme/game/whatever you want to call it does seem to have been invented and popularized by creator Maddie Grace Jepson and their sister.

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Late last month, Jepson posted a TikTok with the text: "POV: I just made this game up on holiday and I'm forcing my lil sis to play it with me and sing the jingle every time xxx."

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In the TikTok, Jepson starts the game with a lilting musical announcement: "When...you know... the words to the song... sing a-long...sing a-long."

When. You know. The words to the song. Sing a-long. Credit: Screenshots: TikTok / @mazier.p / @maddiegracejepson / @maddiegracejepson

The game from there is simple. A person typically sings just one word of a song. If the other person/people recognize the song, they sing it. If they cannot guess, the first person adds another word or words. The game keeps going until the guess is correct. Sometimes people, clearly with shared interests, are able to guess the song hilariously quickly

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Post Jepson's original post, the trend has taken off. Lots of versions of the game have racked up thousands upon thousands of likes. And it is entertaining to see how well some friends and family know one another's taste. People often make the jingle goofy and ramp of the difficulty of the guessing — either by using just one word or hardly trying to match the original sound of the song.

So there you have it, TikTok has provided the perfect game the next time you're gathered around a campfire or struggling to make it through the drive to the beach.