STORM II Parody (AI Staircase Choreography Meme)

Origin

The STORM II parody is an internet meme in which people use AI video tools to recreate the second half of the music video for "Storm," a track by French music project GENER8ION and Swedish rapper Yung Lean. The song was released on April 24, 2026. The video was directed by Romain Gavras and choreographed by Damien Jalet. Set in "an all-boys British boarding school, class of 2034," it shows acts of rebellion and disorder among students in Part I and unified, choreographed movement set to music in Part II, "STORM II." The work earned four nominations at the 2026 MTV Video Music Awards, including Video of the Year and Best Choreography.

The scene that became meme material is the large-scale group dance that begins as the video moves into Part II, in which dozens of students in school uniforms move on a staircase in a way that looks chaotic yet is precisely synchronized. Korean trend newsletter Trend A Word, issue #620, compared the scene to a "mega crew mission" from a dance competition show and named newly released tools such as ChatGPT Astra and the video generation service Higgsfield as the background of the trend, since they allow anyone to make a parody without special skills.

Spread

The parodies first spread overseas, then multiplied on Korean short-form platforms from late August, with the trend generally described as peaking in September 2026. The basic format keeps the original choreography and camera angles and swaps only the people on screen for something else. For this reason it is often called a "challenge," but some observers describe it as closer to an AI parody meme than a dance challenge. In Korea, versions featuring people in hanbok, comedian Park Myung-soo of Infinite Challenge, characters from the military drama "Shin Byeong," babies, puppies and brand mascots were shared on Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts.

Usage

The humor of a STORM II parody comes from the clash between the tension of the original scene and the incongruity of whatever has been placed into it. Common uses include:

AI videos that turn celebrities, characters or pets into the students in the staircase dance
Posts that insert a specific profession or group and are titled "___ version"
Promotional videos in which companies or local governments recreate the dance with real people instead of AI to stand out

In early October, a case running in the opposite direction drew attention. According to the Korea Economic Daily and Money Today, Yeongju City in North Gyeongsang Province released a promotional video for its Punggi Ginseng Festival in which around 60 senior civil servants, dressed in school uniforms, performed the STORM II choreography themselves. The video drew more than 700,000 views within two days. Comments such as "It's more surprising that it wasn't made with AI" followed, showing that once AI parodies become commonplace, footage of real people can itself become the twist.