The viral religious singer TikTok wants to save
The LGBTQ+ TikTok community is divided over a prayer song.
Embedded is your essential guide to what’s good on the internet, from Kate Lindsay and Nick Catucci.🧩
Olivia Leach cosplay is already a thing, by the way. —Kate
TikTok has recently started serving me religious content, in sharp contrast to the chaotic, sarcastic, and certainly sinful videos my For You page typically produces. And I know exactly who to blame: Olivia Leach, a singer who appears in a video from the Circuit Riders account, the TikTok presence of a California-based religious organization.
Leach and fellow singer Aisha Skye are the voices behind the TikTok-viral song “So Good (Picked Me Up),” which is their interpretation of Cory Asbury’s “So Good To Me.” The song was part of a prayer set that Circuit Riders posted last month, and has since received 5.5 million views on the app. What started as a trend using the sound to playfully mock videos of people learning their religious mission locations (instead of, say, Costa Rica, think: Arby’s) has grown into a meme about Leach herself, prompting the organization to turn off comments on videos featuring the singer and, according to comments on TikTok, Leach to make her Instagram private.
“He picked me up and he turned me around / and he placed my feet on solid ground / Hallelujah,” the main part of the song goes, as Leah takes a spin at the microphone for good measure. The song is catchy, and much of its popularity on the app is due to the fact that non-religious people can’t get it out of their head.
“Me vibing to this song knowing damn well that God would personally take me to hell,” one user captioned a video lip-syncing the tune.
But part of the interest in the song has been thanks to Leach herself, and she, in turn, has prompted a contentious discussion in the LGBTQ+ TikTok community.
A number of creators who have been duetted the video of Leach have written in their captions about being attracted to the singer, and saying they could “fix” her. (To answer your next question: Yes, the Circuit Riders was born out of Youth With A Mission, whose website says they “uphold and celebrate the biblical view that God’s intent for holy matrimony is between one man and one woman.”)
Some people understandably assume that if Leach is performing with the Circuit Riders, she must support a belief system that does not recognize their sexuality—and so she needs “saving” from those beliefs. Many within the queer community are calling on fellow users to rethink their posts about Leach, who has not spoken publicly about the attention.
“Are y’all aware that sexual harassment is still sexual harassment even if you’re a lesbian doing it to a conservative woman?” Lizzy, a 23-year-old on TikTok, said in a video. “Making women uncomfortable w/ unsolicited sexual comments isn’t funny?”
“There’s no special circumstance for predatory behavior,” Harper, who goes by the username @homoharper on TikTok, echoed in another recent video about the trend.
Meanwhile, Circuit Riders is still attempting to lean into their popularity, saying they’re working on getting the viral song added to Spotify. Which means we can already predict your 2022 Spotify Wrapped.
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