Entertainment: Hold My Hand and Hold My Hand on TikTok
- InsightTrendsWorld
- 13 hours ago
- 10 min read
What is the “Jet2holiday” Trend?
The "Jet2holiday" trend is a viral TikTok phenomenon built around a short audio clip from a 2022 advertisement for the British low-cost airline Jet2. The audio features a brief snippet of Jess Glynne's 2015 pop song, "Hold My Hand," immediately followed by voice actor Zoe Lister's cheerful and emphatic declaration, "Nothing beats a Jet2 holiday!" The trend involves users pairing this audio with videos of unfortunate or disappointing events, particularly travel fails, as a humorous form of ironic commentary.
The trend sees users creating short, often 10-second, videos that show a moment of expectation versus reality. For example, a video might begin with a beautiful scenic view only to pull back and reveal a disastrous or less-than-ideal situation.
The content is wide-ranging and includes vacation mishaps, awkward social encounters, animal fails, or other general disappointments. The audio's upbeat tone and optimistic tagline create a stark, comedic contrast to the visual content, which is the core of the trend's humor.
The trend has been used by high-profile figures like Mariah Carey and Jeff Goldblum, showcasing its widespread appeal and cultural penetration.
Why Is This Trend Blowing Up?
The "Jet2holiday" trend has gone viral for several key reasons, demonstrating the power of irony, relatability, and brand-agnostic content on social media.
Emotional Resonance and Humor: The trend taps into a universal sense of relatable disappointment and schadenfreude (finding joy in others' misfortunes). The humor lies in the ironic contrast between the positive, aspirational audio and the negative, often cringeworthy, visual reality. This emotional hook makes the content highly shareable and memorable.
Ease of Participation: The trend is simple and accessible. Users don't need a specific skill or elaborate setup to participate. The core elements—an easy-to-find audio clip and a short video of a common misfortune—make it a low-barrier-to-entry trend, encouraging mass adoption.
The Power of an Earworm: Jess Glynne’s "Hold My Hand" is an already catchy and well-known pop song. The brief, upbeat snippet, combined with the memorable voiceover, is a powerful audio loop that gets stuck in people's heads. This sonic signature is instantly recognizable and acts as a cue for the trend.
Organic Virality of Branded Content: While the trend originated from an ad, its popularity is a result of users co-opting the audio for their own creative purposes, not because they are promoting the brand. The trend's authenticity comes from this subversion of the original commercial message, turning a marketing tool into a cultural meme.
Overview
In a summer lacking a definitive "song of the summer," the "Jet2holiday" trend on TikTok has propelled Jess Glynne's 2015 track "Hold My Hand" to viral fame, earning it the unofficial title. The trend, which pairs the song and a "Nothing beats a Jet2 holiday" voiceover with videos of comedic failures, has amassed over 80 billion views across more than 9 million videos. This unexpected surge highlights how a single piece of audio from a 10-year-old song and an airline ad can be repurposed by the TikTok community to create a new cultural moment, surpassing songs that were intentionally released for summer. The phenomenon demonstrates the platform's unique ability to redefine what a "hit" is, prioritizing relatable, user-generated content over traditional music industry strategies.
Detailed Findings
Massive Reach: The "Hold My Hand" sound has been used over 9 million times on TikTok, accumulating over 80 billion views, which is an extraordinary level of engagement for any piece of content.
Star Power: The trend has crossed over into mainstream celebrity culture, with stars like Mariah Carey and Jeff Goldblum participating, further cementing its status and reach beyond its initial user base.
Impact on Other Music: The trend's success has overshadowed contemporary hits and challenged traditional methods of music promotion. While artists like Alex Warren and Morgan Wallen topped Spotify and Billboard charts, their songs didn't achieve the same kind of viral, user-generated momentum as "Hold My Hand."
Nostalgia and Discovery: The trend has reintroduced a 10-year-old pop song to a new generation of listeners, proving that a song's popularity isn't solely dependent on its release date but can be revitalized by digital trends.
Unconventional Chart Success: The article points out that the summer of 2025 lacked a clear, energetic hit, with charts being dominated by slower, more mellow songs. The viral, high-energy nature of the "Jet2holiday" audio filled this void in the cultural conversation, even if it didn't top traditional charts.
Key Success Factors of a Viral Trend
The success of the "Jet2holiday" trend and others like it can be broken down into specific elements that make them primed for virality.
Emotional Relatability: The trend’s humor is built on a shared human experience: things not going as planned. By tapping into this feeling of disappointment and pairing it with an optimistic, almost mocking, audio, the trend becomes deeply relatable and engaging.
The "Remix" Culture: TikTok's core functionality is built on the ability to use and remix existing audio, making it easy for users to take a single piece of content and create their own variations. This user-generated content (UGC) is the engine of virality, and the Jet2 ad audio was perfect for this purpose.
Audio as a Central Element: The audio itself—the combination of a nostalgic song and an instantly recognizable catchphrase—is the central, repeatable element that drives the trend. It's a sonic brand that unifies all the different video variations.
The Element of Surprise: The core comedic structure of the videos relies on a sudden reveal or unexpected twist. This surprise factor is what makes the content compelling and encourages viewers to watch until the end, and ultimately, to share it.
Key Takeaway
The "Jet2holiday" trend underscores a critical shift in how cultural hits are created. A song or piece of media no longer needs a massive marketing budget or a current release date to become a phenomenon. Instead, genuine, user-driven trends built on humor, relatability, and a remixable format can spontaneously transform old content into a new cultural sensation, effectively crowning a "song of the summer" without any traditional promotion.
Main Trend: The Micro-Viral Revolution
This phenomenon is a prime example of the Micro-Viral Revolution, where specific, short-form content elements (like an audio snippet or a dance) become the cultural currency, driving massive engagement and attention far beyond what a full song or traditional ad campaign could achieve on its own. It's less about a song being a "hit" and more about an "audio" or "meme" going viral.
Description of the Trend: The Sonic Meme
The Sonic Meme is the main trend here. It's a short, highly repeatable audio clip—often from an unexpected source—that is repurposed and divorced from its original context to create a new, ironic, or humorous meaning. The "Jet2holiday" audio is a textbook example, taking a promotional slogan and a pop song and turning them into a punchline for a wide range of relatable life fails.
Key Characteristics of the Sonic Meme Trend
Repurposing of Existing Media: The trend is fueled by the creative recontextualization of media, whether it's an old song, a movie clip, or a commercial jingle.
Ironic Detachment: The humor is often derived from the ironic disconnect between the original intent of the audio and the new, user-generated content.
Infinite Variations: The simple structure allows for endless creativity and personal expression, as users apply the same audio to unique and often personal scenarios.
Cross-Platform Potential: While born on TikTok, the audio and its associated meme can easily travel to other platforms like Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts, amplifying its reach.
Market and Cultural Signals Supporting the Trend
Decline of Traditional "Hits": The music industry's struggle to produce a single, universally agreed-upon "song of the summer" for 2025 indicates a fragmented media landscape where traditional promotion isn't as effective at creating cultural cohesion.
Rise of the "Unexpected": The success of a 10-year-old song and an ad campaign shows that consumers are increasingly drawn to content that feels organic and surprising, rather than polished and manufactured.
The Search for Authenticity: In an era of highly curated social feeds, the "Jet2holiday" trend, with its focus on "fails" and mundane mishaps, provides a sense of authenticity and relatability that glossy, perfect content often lacks.
What is Consumer Motivation?
Desire for Connection: Consumers participate in the trend to feel a sense of belonging to a larger online community. By creating their own version, they signal that they are "in on the joke" and are part of the cultural moment.
Creative Expression: The trend serves as a creative outlet. It allows users to turn a negative or disappointing experience into a source of humor and connection, transforming their personal "fail" into a piece of art.
Stress Relief and Escapism: In a fast-paced world, finding humor in everyday failures is a form of stress relief. The trend allows consumers to laugh at their own misfortunes and find solace in the fact that others share similar experiences.
Description of Consumers
Consumer Summary: The consumers driving this trend are highly digitally native, active on platforms like TikTok, and possess a sophisticated understanding of internet humor. They are less influenced by traditional media and more by what is trending organically in their feeds. They value authenticity and creativity and are motivated by the desire to connect with others through shared cultural touchpoints. They are cultural curators and creators, not just passive consumers. They are skeptical of overt, polished marketing and are drawn to content that feels genuine and slightly subversive.
Detailed Summary:
Who are they?: These are the core users of TikTok, who are constantly scrolling, discovering, and creating content. They are not just observers; they are active participants in the platform's ecosystem.
What is their age?: Primarily Gen Z and younger Millennials, who have grown up with social media and are fluent in its language of memes, irony, and short-form video.
What is their gender?: The trend's appeal is gender-neutral, as its themes of disappointment and relatable humor transcend gender lines.
What is their income?: Income is not a primary factor, as the content is free to consume and create. The motivation is cultural and social, not economic.
What is their lifestyle?: They lead a digitally integrated lifestyle, with a significant portion of their daily life spent on social platforms. They are likely to be early adopters of new trends and are connected to global communities.
How the Trend Is Changing Consumer Behavior
From Passive Consumption to Active Participation: The trend transforms consumers from passive recipients of media into active creators and brand marketers. Users are the ones giving the song and the brand a new life, not a marketing team.
Shifting Brand Perception: The trend demonstrates that a brand's image can be shaped by its audience in unexpected ways. Jet2, a company focused on holiday packages, is now associated with ironic "fails," a connection they didn't create but have wisely embraced.
Nostalgia as a Modern Marketing Tool: The trend shows that nostalgia isn't just about looking back; it can be a powerful engine for a new trend. Brands and artists can tap into the cultural memory of consumers to reignite interest in older content.
Implications of Trend Across the Ecosystem
For Consumers:
The trend provides a creative outlet for self-expression and a way to connect with others through shared humor. It also reinforces a sense of communal experience, where personal disappointments become fodder for collective laughter.
For Brands and CPGs:
Brands must be prepared for their content to be co-opted and remixed in ways they didn't anticipate. The best strategy is not to fight it but to embrace it. Jet2's success lies in its willingness to lean into the trend, showing an authentic and "in-the-know" brand personality. It also highlights the importance of creating simple, repeatable content that can be easily repurposed by users.
For Retailers:
This trend reinforces the idea that unexpected, viral moments can drive discovery and sales. Retailers should be quick to identify and capitalize on trending content, perhaps by creating their own humorous videos or partnering with creators who are already part of the trend.
Strategic Forecast
Investment in "Meme-Ready" Content: Brands will increasingly focus on creating content—especially audio and short video clips—that is simple, repeatable, and has the potential to be a sonic meme. This will be a new metric for creative teams.
Authentic Brand Engagement: Companies will shift from simply creating ads to actively engaging with and participating in user-generated trends. This means having a team dedicated to monitoring and responding to viral content in a timely and authentic way.
Resurgence of Legacy Media: We will see more legacy songs, movie clips, and ad campaigns being revived and repurposed by the TikTok community. Brands with a rich history of media content have a potential goldmine for future viral trends.
Areas of Innovation
AI-Driven Trend Forecasting: AI tools will become essential for brands to predict which audio and visual elements have the highest potential for virality, allowing them to create "meme-ready" content more strategically.
Interactive Audio and Visual Tools: Social platforms will likely release more advanced tools that allow users to easily remix and interact with brand-provided audio, video, and AR filters, further blurring the lines between branded and user-generated content.
"Sound as a Service" Platforms: New platforms could emerge that specialize in licensing and providing catchy, non-copyrighted audio clips for content creators and brands to use in a way that is designed to go viral.
"Fail" Content Marketing: Brands will move beyond showcasing only perfect, aspirational content. They'll start to embrace and even create content that shows relatable, humorous "fails," knowing that this authenticity is what resonates most with Gen Z and Millennial audiences.
Creator Collaboration Ecosystems: The reliance on creators will deepen. Platforms and brands will create more formal and informal ecosystems for collaborating with creators who have a proven track record of starting or participating in viral trends.
Summary of Trends
Core Consumer Trend: The Relatable Remix. Consumers are driven by a need to transform personal, negative experiences into a source of public humor and collective connection by repurposing and remixing existing media.
Core Social Trend: The Sonic Meme. A new form of social currency has emerged, where a short, catchy audio clip becomes the foundational element for a wide-ranging, community-driven trend, often completely detached from its original purpose.
Core Strategy: Authentic Adaptation. Brands must move from a top-down, "broadcast" marketing approach to a more agile, adaptive strategy that involves monitoring trends and authentically participating in and even embracing user-driven narratives around their brand.
Core Industry Trend: The Democratization of Cultural Hits. The power to create a cultural sensation is no longer held exclusively by major record labels or marketing agencies. It is now in the hands of the community, where an unexpected piece of content can outpace professionally produced hits.
Core Consumer Motivation: Emotional Expression Through Humor. The primary motivation for consumer participation is to use humor as a way to process and share relatable emotional experiences, finding solidarity in shared disappointment.
Final Thought: The New Rules of Virality
The "Jet2holiday" trend is a powerful lesson in the unpredictable nature of modern media. It’s a clear signal that the old playbook for creating a hit is outdated. Success isn't about being new, polished, or even intentional. It's about being relatable, remixable, and finding that perfect, unexpected spark that allows a community to transform your content into something entirely new. The brands and artists who will thrive are those who understand that they are no longer just publishers of content, but suppliers of raw materials for the creative genius of their audience.
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