Adult Swim Didn’t Start Its TikTok Trend but It's All-In Now

Adult Swim president Michael Ouweleen didn’t know the cable brand he oversees was taking over TikTok until his college-aged kids tipped him off last weekend. Upon opening the app himself, the longtime television executive found himself in the middle of an ode to the nighttime programming block he first helped champion two decades ago. In the past week, hundreds of thousands of users have posted their own video takes on Adult Swim’s long-running linear bumpers (which the networks refers to as "bumps"): the 10- or 15-second Adult Swim-branded clips that have appeared for years between shows running on the adult-oriented counterpart to Cartoon Network. The videos, set to producer Vano 3000’s remixed version of "Time Moves Slow" by Toronto band BadBadNotGood, feature white text over a short cinematic scene, narrating from the weird to the funny to the poignant. All of the videos end with the bracketed Adult Swim (or, more simply, AS) logo, which is sometimes hidden within the scene itself. https://www.tiktok.com/@franticframes/video/6971022375051709702 Press some buttons, even if you don’t know what they do, as one version in front of an elaborate synth setup urges—“What’s the worst that can happen?” the video asks as the Adult Swim logo comes into focus on a screen. Another summer school-themed bump tells viewers to stop procrastinating as a printer spits out the logo. Other creators show off "[AS]" emerging in unpredictable places: blooming out of newly watered seeds, hidden in the cords of a vacuum or even appearing as the surprise subject of a leg tattoo. https://www.tiktok.com/@marley.makes.things/video/6970837546284633349 Ouweleen and the rest of the Adult Swim team spent the weekend transfixed before the brand’s social team crafted its own response on Sunday, urging creators to keep the trend going. As of Thursday, videos tagged #AdultSwimBump had been viewed nearly 160 million times, while videos tagged with the hashtag #AdultSwim had been viewed 1.6 billion times. In less than a week, Adult Swim’s TikTok account, which has been around for about a year, grew its follower count by more than 1 million, from 800,000 followers to 1.8 million. “It’s been super gratifying for everyone on the team,” Ouweleen, who has been watching the videos roll in over the last several days, said. (Some of his favorites include one partial stop-motion creation from user @jooystin that ends with the flickering Adult Swim logo on a television constructed from cardboard.) “I haven’t seen one that’s off-brand yet—and that’s saying a lot, because there are 185,000 of them.” https://www.tiktok.com/@jooystin/video/6970859515138903301 The history of Adult Swim's bumps Adult Swim bumps are a legacy in their own right. They first appeared on the air May 25, 2003—two years after the network was founded—and served primarily as a way to warn children to turn off the television. “We were very concerned back then about angry parents,” Ouweleen recalled. They soon evolved into a place for Adult Swim to speak directly to its viewers. Some of the bumps are simple white text messages on a solid black background, offering up ruminations and jokes, while others are still images of landscapes and nature scenes with the Adult Swim letters hidden within. There are few limitations for what a bump can be, and the guidelines for a good bump allow for plenty of experimentation. “It’s all about good writing, good timing, good music choices and having a point of view,” Ouweleen said. “The guiding light for Adult Swim has been, just say what you feel. That’s it! Anything that strikes us as odd or funny or strange or maybe even sometimes sad, we’re just going to be honest with it. We’re not putting things through a filter.” Over the years, the bumps have gotten even more elaborate, with animators, guest creators and even students taking their own cracks at the format. Presently, a team of between four and five people write and produce 25 bumps every week. They're overseen by Adult Swim’s vice president of on-air and social media Michael Cahill, who also serves as creative director. Since 2003, more than 20,000 bumps have been created for the network. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzO9KFtpy20 The TikTok trend embracing the legacy and guidelines of the bumps has proved validating for the team, which has long looked to speak to its young adult audience honestly as peers. “We always saw the bumps as speaking to the audience, and now they’re responding back and writing back,” Ouweleen said. “They are co-founders of the brand and co-participants, and now it’s a true two-way conversation, which feels natural for us. It’s what we’ve been preparing for for 20 years.” Keeping the trend going Adult Swim staffers convened Tuesday to discuss how to keep the trend going and how best to meet the moment. They considered bringing some of the new bumps to linear TV. The idea was axed, however, after considering not only aspect ratio issues and rights clearance headaches, but the fact that it wouldn’t necessarily be additive for fans. There’s a sensitivity about how best to embrace the trend in a way that feels genuine and honest, and the brainstorming continues “with an eye toward not ruining the kind of open mood of the moment we find ourselves in,” Ouweleen said. The viral trend arrived at a good strategic moment for Adult Swim, which has been trying to expand its global footprint and its audience base as young adults tend to flock to streaming over linear television. TikTok’s global reach and popularity among young adults offers up the perfect combination, and the takeoff of the trend has already offered some promising early results: 5 million of the nearly 20 million viewers who watched Adult Swim’s response video on Sunday were from outside of the U.S., according to the company’s internal metrics. Considering the platform’s young and global reach, Adult Swim was already in the midst of staffing up a team devoted to engaging with fans on TikTok, and the videos have helped reframe the platform and how they can best use it. However, Ouweleen and the Adult Swim team have no illusions about the fickleness of virality. “Sometimes the big lesson is you can’t force things. You can’t will things into being,” Ouweleen said. “We did 20 years of work that led up to this, but we didn’t start it, and that’s the blessing of it. Sometimes you can’t set out to create something like this. You just have to set out to do big things and be unique and hope it works—and in this case it did.” Adult Swim Dives Into Films Based on Hit Shows Like Aqua Teen Hunger Force

Programming & Performance

Adult Swim Didn’t Start Its TikTok Trend, but the Network Is Running With It

Nighttime cable brand is looking to amplify creators—but 'you can't force things'

Kelsey Sutton

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Kelsey Sutton