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Origin

The Zero Two dance refers to a short clip of Zero Two (002), the heroine of the Japanese anime Darling in the Franxx, bouncing her hips side to side to the beat with her hands behind her head, and to the challenge of copying it. The dance does not actually appear in the anime. It is fan-made content that puts dance moves from the animated music video ME!ME!ME! onto Zero Two.

Its roots go back further than you might think. A video of Zero Two doing the ME!ME!ME! dance, posted to the video site Coub by user Anna Crowe on February 27, 2018, is an early documented example and passed 500,000 views in under three years. On December 9, 2019, Reddit user dat1guy420 posted a GIF of Zero Two dancing to r/DarlingInTheFranxx, earning 3,200 upvotes over a year, and on April 14, 2020 a version was made for the desktop wallpaper app Wallpaper Engine.

Spread

Music was the trigger. "Hai Phút Hơn" ("A Little Over Two Minutes") by Vietnamese artists Pháo and CM1X was posted to CM1X's channel on February 2, 2020 and reached 21.9 million views in ten months, with a remix following on March 4. In November 2020, that remix was paired with the Zero Two dance clip and spread as a TikTok challenge. Know Your Meme notes that the trend appears to have started on Chinese TikTok.

The TikTok numbers climbed steeply. A video by marlenea23 on November 17, 2020 hit 34 million views in a month, one by sava.schultz on November 28 reached 49 million in just over two weeks, and one by laurenxburch on December 12 got 25.9 million in five days. Spin-offs that made other things dance instead of Zero Two poured in: otaku806's November 22 video recreating the dance with neon computers drew 13.9 million views in a little over three weeks, and virtual influencer FN Meka's December 13 animation of a car wrapped in Zero Two art hit 93 million views in four days. The dance later became widely known in Korea as internet streamers and YouTubers copied it on their broadcasts.

Usage

• Challenge videos of hands behind the head and bouncing hips to the "Hai Phút Hơn" remix
• Parody animations that make characters, objects or vehicles do the same moves in place of Zero Two
• A short dance on live streams as a reaction to donations or to change the mood

Sources

• Know Your Meme, "Hai Phút Hơn" — the song (Pháo and CM1X, released February 2, 2020 and its views, March 4 remix), Anna Crowe's Coub video on February 27, 2018, dat1guy420's Reddit GIF on December 9, 2019, Wallpaper Engine on April 14, 2020, the November 2020 TikTok trend and its likely Chinese origin, figures for videos by marlenea23, sava.schultz and laurenxburch, figures for spin-offs by otaku806 and FN Meka
• Know Your Meme, "Zero Two" — entry on the Darling in the Franxx character Zero Two