Two cats stand up on their hind legs. One presses its face into the camera, paws on its head, and screams. Behind it the other one dances. Then they swap. Then both dance side by side and lunge at the lens. If that is all over your feed, you have met the Smalltown Boy trend. This post sorts out where it actually comes from, because three different things got mixed together in October 2026.
The song: "Smalltown Boy" by Bronski Beat
"Smalltown Boy" is the 1984 debut single by the British synth-pop trio Bronski Beat, sung in Jimmy Somerville's high falsetto. According to Wikipedia, it came out in the UK on 25 May 1984, reached number 3 there and topped the US dance club chart.
The song is about a young man who is bullied and decides to leave home. The music video, partly filmed at a leisure centre in east London, makes it explicit: a boy is beaten up for being gay, his family turns away from him, and he takes the train to London. That is why the song has been an LGBTQ anthem for forty years, and why it sounds sad even while it makes you want to dance. We won't quote the lyrics; the chorus that everyone hums is the bit about running away.
The clip: "Don't cry. Dance!"
The dance itself is not from the music video, a film or a TV show. It comes from a 21-second Instagram Reel posted on 4 August 2026 by Instagram creator @elvira.mua.music and dancer @mr_unvrs, captioned "Don't cry. Dance!".
The structure is simple and very easy to copy:
- One of them screams into a 0.5x ultra-wide phone lens, both hands on their head, while the other dances alone far behind, in front of a red wooden fence.
- Hard cut. They swap.
- Both dance side by side: from above, from the ground against the sky, then straight on.
- Both rush at the camera.
The Reel had about 200,000 likes by 14 October 2026. Our fact-check found nothing with the same structure posted before it.
The screaming cats: how it went viral
On 2 October 2026 TikTok creator @bellvtrix.ai posted the same 21 seconds shot for shot, with two AI cats standing on their hind legs in place of the dancers, crediting the original video. By 14 October it had 10.4 million views and 1.2 million likes on TikTok, and the Instagram copy had about 1.3 million likes.
The AI cat version by @bellvtrix.ai that started the wave.
Within days people were remaking it with their own pets, dachshunds, couples, film characters and celebrities. Google searches for "Smalltown Boy AI" started on 4 October and peaked around 10 October. People call it many things:
- the Smalltown Boy trend, Smalltown Boy dance or Smalltown Boy AI
- the screaming cats trend, two cats dancing or the AI cat trend
- Smalltown Boy cat dance (also spelled "small town boy")
- some people, oddly, call it the Macarena
Is it from Netflix's Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story?
No, although the timing makes it easy to think so. Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story came out on Netflix on 17 September 2026. In episode 6, "Bed and Breakfast", "Smalltown Boy" plays over a slow dance that cuts between two couples from different centuries: Lizzie Borden with Bridget, and Aileen Wuornos with Shelby. The scene drew a lot of comment, and searches like "lizzie borden dance scene" grew alongside the meme.
But it is a different dance. Nothing in the show has the screams, the swap or the rush at the lens, and the Instagram clip was posted six weeks before the series came out. Same song, two separate moments that happened to land in the same month.
Is it the 2024 Smalltown Boy trend?
Also no. In spring 2024 the song had its first TikTok revival as the #80sdancechallenge: kids filmed their parents showing off how they danced in the 80s. One video of a mom passed 62 million views, the song went back into the UK chart, and Jimmy Somerville publicly backed it (BBC).
That was real parents dancing freestyle at home. The 2026 trend is a fixed two-person script, and most of the versions you see are made with AI. If you want a nod to 2024, put a parent in one of the two photos.
Why it works
The format has a set-up and a pay-off in 21 seconds. The scream is pure overreaction, the swap gives the second person their moment, and the dance turns the panic into fun. Putting two cats in it adds a layer of absurdity on top of a song about real heartbreak, which is very 2026 internet.
Make your own
You don't need a red fence or a 0.5x lens. Our Smalltown Boy AI page makes the full 21-second clip from two photos, people or pets, with the song on it, for 10 credits at 720p. For the photo tips and what we learned rendering it, see how to make a Smalltown Boy AI video.
Figures checked on 14 October 2026. RapVideo AI is not affiliated with Bronski Beat, Netflix or the creators of the clips mentioned.