While many millennial R&B lovers are likely familiar with Grammy-nominated singer Snoh Aalegra, who became beloved stateside around 2018 with stylish wedding-core love songs like “I Want You Around” and “Find Someone Like You,” she’s earning a new generation of fans as her 2021, Neptunes-produced single “In Your Eyes” explodes on TikTok and travels across the web. Snippets of the song and a recent remix by a 19-year-old producer are soundtracking a handful of trends, including two dance routines, an optical illusion, and high school prom posts. While older stars like Lizzo and Lebron James’ wife, Savannah (along with their daughter Zhuri) have gotten in on it, TikTok reports that 83% of the track’s audience on the app are between 18 and 24.
According to Luminate, total streams of “In Your Eyes” have grown a whopping 3685.5 percent from the start of 2025 to April 17. Its listenership has steadily increased each week, but made massive leaps starting in March, coinciding with the song’s rise on TikTok. Meanwhile, Aalegra — who last released music in August 2023 and hasn’t given an interview in four years, according to her representatives — has subtly acknowledged the song’s renaissance. Through those representatives, Aalegra declined to comment on the trend, though they say, “Snoh reposted some amazing ones,” citing a well-circulated clip of creator @bui.t.ful as an example. “We are letting the internet do its thing organically,” they add.
With over 1 billion reported active users on TikTok alone, a hodgepodge of content creators are incentivized to copy popular trends, though there’s less incentive to cite the source material. Because of this, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly why “In Your Eyes” has taken off or name everyone who could claim credit for it, but there are some notable points in its journey to virality. As far back as January, a few TikTokers began to highlight the song as a favorite of theirs with modestly popular videos, such as user @therapnerd writing, “Pharrell did his big one with this beat” over a clip of themselves miming and dancing to it. In February, user @trinnsanity pointed the song out as a recent discovery, captioning their post, “When you thought you had good taste in music but your sister starts playing her playlist.”
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An “In Your Eyes” dance sequence that has become popular is the one performed by TikToker @bui.t.ful, who credited user @ruscowski11 as the creator, using the abbreviation DC and a tag. Several others have too. On March 9, @ruscowski11, a 22-year-old living outside Boston named Ty Ruszkowski, posted the routine from his kitchen. Ruszkowski tells Rolling Stone he’s not a full-time creator or professional dancer, but gained a following about three months ago dancing to a then-popular sound and has continued to make similar videos. He didn’t know Aalegra’s “In Your Eyes” until he had heard it in TikTok videos like @jadinsmoove’s, which feature people bopping to the song or showing off their outfits in clips transitioned by the wipe of a hand. While Ruszkowski’s original, pajama-clad post has been seen close to two million times. On March 20, he dressed a bit more formally to hit the dance in a video that’s since earned 5.3 million views.
Ruszkowski says he got his “In Your Eyes” routine from a TikTok by users @stoke.mel and @your.local.airline.food, who first did moves by Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5, interspersed with archival clips of the iconic artists. He added another move popular on TikTok to the end of his dance — the “uptown downtown,” popularized by Milwaukee rapper SteveDaStoner’s take on a song by seemingly incarcerated Louisiana rapper Winston Bih.
It’s worth noting that while Ruszkowski is white, these references come from Black culture and creators — but if there’s one thing the internet loves, it’s a white person with some rhythm. Since 2020, when white TikTok stars like Charli D’Amelio gained acclaim for performing the Renegade dance choreographed by Black teen Jalaiah Harmon, crediting original dance creators has become more common, especially amongst serious dancers, a practice that makes it easier to trace Ruszkowski’s routine back to him. However, he doesn’t claim to be a serious dancer, and says he chose not to mention where he got his inspiration from. “I usually don’t put a caption on my videos, but I’m pretty sure everyone in the comments understood where it came from,” he says. “I don’t take credit for the dance, I don’t say ‘DC me.’ People just do that. I could care less.” However, he says generally, his dance videos — his “In Your Eyes” dances being his second and third most popular as of publication — have gotten him business with labels and others seeking to promote sounds on the app.
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Queens producer Kay Archon, whose remix of “In Your Eyes” gained traction on TikTok in late March, has also benefited from the song’s popularity. He says moments like this bolster his career, leading artists, managers, and labels to reach out. “It brings a lot of exposure,” he says. “It gives me more opportunities.”
Archon tells Rolling Stone he was inspired to put his own spin on the song by the hand-wipe trend that inspired Ruszkowski, too. Archon began producing four years ago because of TikTok, after seeing videos of other beatmakers using FL Studio. “I was always making music. I was one of those people, pencil tapping on the lunch tables,” he says. “I was scrolling on TikTok, and I saw people making music on this app. So I just downloaded it and tried it. I was very bad at first.” Now, he’s produced for buzzing New York rap group 41 and landed another viral remix of Laila!’s “Not My Problem” that she shared herself.
Archon’s take on “In Your Eyes” starts with an explosive, distorted three-count, a style he’s put on other remixes — though he says he’s gotten feedback that it’s too similar to the Neptunes’ signature four-count intro featured on the original “In Your Eyes.” For reach, Archon posted clips of his remix multiple times with a different viral video of creator Leland Manigo dancing. His most popular TikTok came one day after he made the track, with the caption “Why does the start sound like neon guts 💀” (yet another song produced by the Neptunes’ Pharrell Williams).
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Then, on April 2, an original dance video set to Kay Archon’s remix set off the second choreography trend, he says. Mid-shift at Olive Garden, TikToker @cubelinkvon hit a dance across the restaurant that amalgamated a bunch of viral trends, including: the sharp arms popularized by Philly rapper Sturdyyoungin’s song “Trippin,” the uptown-downtown, shimmying-down-a-wall a la Zack Fox, and a nishiyama daddy move, made popular by a group of Japanese bartenders. Cubelinkvon has earned over 25 million views across various posts of his routine, and Kay Archon’s original sound has been used in over 179,000 TikToks and counting.
“In Your Eyes” is just the latest track to earn a second life through TikTok, following the recent crazes around Janet Jackson’s “Someone to Call My Lover” from 2001, Miguel’s “Sure Thing” from 2010, and the lesser known Kinfolk Thugs’ “Dumptruck” from the same year. In those instances, artists and their teams capitalized on the newfound interest, with Jackson breaking down the song’s origins, Miguel releasing a pack of “Sure Thing” remixes akin to the versions that circulated in 2023, and Kinfolk Thugs taking new interviews about the song and reposting celebrities like Megan Thee Stallion dancing to it. Though one of the co-writers of “In Your Eyes,” Ant Clemons, celebrated the song’s comeback on his Instagram grid, somewhat uniquely, Snoh Aalegra is taking more of a backseat. Meanwhile, creators like Kay Archon, Ruszkowski, and more are enjoying the limelight.
