“Raise your ya ya ya.” Pretty self-explanatory, right? Well, maybe not.
If that phrase confuses you, but you've heard your kids belt it out, they're probably familiar with a mega-viral TikTok post that swept the nation.
Jodie Langel, a former Broadway singer turned vocal instructor, posted a video helping a student learn the chorus from “I’d Rather Be Me,” a song from the musical “Mean Girls.” The internet became captivated by Langel’s immediate fix of her student’s vocal range.
With a shocked look on her face, Athena Rae, the student who Langel was teaching, nailed the high note and the clip took off. The original TikTok post has surpassed 28 million likes and 280 million views, with more than 10,000 other videos using the original sound.
While Langel already had a sizable social media following — with a different singing instructional video reaching 54 million views — Rae's brand new social media accounts have skyrocketed, with her Instagram and TikTok accounts now counting more than 100,000 followers.
Still, Langel was surprised to see the original video from Dec. 20, 2024 taking off so dramatically.
“I can't believe this trend has lasted so long, but I'm thrilled,” Langel tells TODAY.com.
The trend continued to grow into 2025, to which Langel responded by hiring a manager and creating merchandise. The sweatshirts feature a cartoon version of Langel singing her now-famous catchphrase.
TikTok creators have also made remixes to the song, including a variety of professional sports team accounts like the Las Vegas Raiders.
“All this crazy ‘ya ya ya’ thing will eventually die down, but the teaching is inherent to who I am and who I always will be, and I’ll continue to do that,” Langel says of the attention.
Where does "raise your ya ya ya" come from?
At the Texas Thespians conference on Nov. 24, 2024, Langel met Rae and gave her quick vocal instructions to an audience of conference attendees, sparking the trend.
Langel explained that the technique involves singing open vowels to hit higher notes in difficult songs; something she learned while doing eight shows a week in her Broadway career for shows like “Cats” and “Les Miserables.”
Just before the vocal exercise, Rae was “grabbing” the notes, causing her voice to crack when singing in a higher register. By using an open vowel such as “ya,” Langel encouraged Rae’s mouth to open up, allowing her to sing the note more strongly.
Langel believes that the main reason for the video's popularity is the shocked reaction from Rae, who surprised herself with the vocal range that Langel helped unlock.
“Everybody wants that ‘aha!’ moment, you know? So I think that that’s what really caught on,” explains Langel. “Not everybody can afford a $90 voice lesson, and the fact that my videos are teaching people to sing just ... there’s no better feeling than that.”
What does "raise your ya ya ya" mean?
On TODAY with Jenna & Friends, TikTok influencer and middle school teacher Mr. Phillip Lindsey joined the show to explain to Jenna Bush Hager and guest co-host Scarlett Johansson how to use the trend correctly. The phrase itself does not mean anything other than “bringing your A-game,” Mr. Lindsey explained.
“This is insane,” Scarlett Johansson said on TODAY. “What is happening?”
“Your kids will just break out and ‘raise your ya ya ya?’” Jenna asked Mr. Lindsey about his students.
“It’s trending. They’ll just break it out,” he replied.
Langel has seen the trend catch on with even younger kids when a choir director posted a video about his students learning how to do the vocal exercise.
“He said these videos are making my kids sound better, because the ‘ya ya’ technique actually works when people actually know what it is.”
This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:
