What Is The 'Pull Up Stuntin" Meme? TikTok's Alien Spaceship Dance Explained

"Pull up stuntin'" is another iteration in a growing trend of brainrot memes on TikTok that started with characters like Quandale Dingle and has become mainstream. This meme particularly refers to a series of videos of TikToker Carnell Nichols dancing with an alien to the pluggnb rap song "Take Off / House Arrest" by Summrs. While the original video was posted back in 2021, this iteration of the meme surfaced in 2024.

But what does this Alien Spaceship Dance mean? And how did it become viral so quickly? Here's everything you need to know.

What Is The Origin Of The Meme?

The original video of the 'Pull Up Stuntin'' video was published on July 9th, 2021 by TikToker @trendsetterrrrrrr (aka Carnell Nichols), captioned, "When the aliens abduct me but i like their music," and received 2.6 million plays in about three years (shown below). The dance that Nichols dances is called the Carnell Stomp, and was created by him, as is shown in many videos of him performing it dating back to 2020.

The first iteration of the meme was posted by TikToker @armando25022 on March 15th, 2024, which was a response to a comment reading, "thugbooty43," and used a low-quality version of the original video with the Rio De Janeiro filter, and the aforementioned song (shown below).

How Did Pull-Up Stuntin' Spread?

Soon after, more and more variations of the meme started to show up on TikTok. On March 26th, 20224, TikToker @shock_emoji624 posted the video, asking who airdropped it to them (shown below, left). Another TikToker reposted a cropped version, receiving over 1.2 million plays in just four days (shown below, right).

How Has This Video Been Used In Memes?

More cursed iterations started to surface very quickly going into the start of April, much like the previously trending 'You Are My Sunshine' Lebron edits. For instance, on March 31st, 2024, @dahoodjaquan posted a Roblox version of the dance, gaining over 177,000 plays (shown below).

Eventually, the meme grew so popular that Carnell Nichols himself even published a tutorial for his viral dance, originally called the "Carnell Stomp," but dubbed the "Pull up stuntin' dance" in the video's caption. Posted on April 4th, 2024, the video gained over 1.4 million plays in just one day (shown below).

For the full history of pull up stuntin,' be sure to "check out Know Your Meme's encyclopedia entry for more information.