TikTok’s Melissa McCarthy Mandela effect
Comedian Han Williamson’s brush with viral fame—and misinformation.
Embedded is your essential guide to what’s good on the internet, written by Kate Lindsay and edited by Nick Catucci.
The best Melissa McCarthy movie is Spy and I will hear no objections. —Kate
Over the holidays, you might have unknowingly been swept up in a bit of TikTok misinformation. While the app’s penchant for promoting falsehoods bodes poorly for things like democracy, just as often these misunderstandings are about far less significant topics—for example, Melissa McCarthy.
After comedian and TikTok user Han Williamson’s video of her dancing to “Something That I Want” by Grace Potter and the Nocturnals went viral (26 million views and counting), a curious suggested search appeared under it: “Melissa McCarthy original want something that I want.”
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I’ve written about TikTok’s suggested search misinformation problem before, but this one achieved something particularly surreal: It seemingly planted a false memory into at least some of the millions of people who were exposed to it. As I watched this dance take off across For You pages, comment sections were filled with the same questions: What is this trend, and how did it start? Users—confidently!—would reply with the same answer: It’s a scene from a Melissa McCarthy movie.
Thit thing is, searching “Melissa McCarthy original want something that I want” doesn’t bring up anything remotely close to McCarthy performing the same dance as Han. Instead, it’s just edits of McCarthy in the movie Tammy—posted after Han’s video already went viral. But it seems a combination of some people saying Han looks like Melissa McCarthy, plus the dance perhaps evoking the actress’s physicality, caused people to think Han must have been paying homage to a movie scene that, it turns out, does not exist. The most confusing thing about all of this may be that “Something That I Want” by Grace Potter and the Nocturnals is from a movie—Disney’s Tangled, which Melissa McCarthy also had nothing to do with.
“I haven't even seen Tammy,” Han says over Zoom. “I just literally like to make dances and I do improv, so I combine the two.”
Whether the viewers found Han because of her dancing or because of Melissa McCarthy, they have since catapulted the Los Angeles-based comedian into viral fame, attention she’s hoping to translate into IRL success in comedy or a career like creator Brittany Broski’s. Han has a show this Friday in Los Angeles—get tickets here—and below, you can read our conversation about her confusing experience going viral and how she’s hoping to grow her career from this moment.
Before we dive into why we’re here, tell me a bit about yourself. Are you in LA?
I live in LA right now, but I am from Colorado. I grew up there and I went to school at UNC in Greeley, which is known for its meat factory. And so it smells like a meat packing plant in the town. But I had a really good time there. I was on an improv troupe for four years and so that really shaped what I wanted to do, 'cause at the time I was majoring in acting. I knew in high school that I wanted to do comedy, but that really solidified it for me, being in that space with other people. So I moved here two and a half years ago and it's been good. I do comedy classes and I'm starting to do standup. I'm not very good at it.
I actually saw a clip. I was like, “This is so funny.”
Oh, cool. I'm glad.
We're always our worst critics, I think.
Yeah. I agree. It's such a different artform, so I'm still trying to develop a skill set for it. I have a show on the 19th, so that'll be cool. It's at the Fourth Wall comedy club in Hollywood.
Had you gone viral before this?
No, not like this. I have had a few videos that have popped off. I have a problem oversharing on the internet. So I made this rule where I would just share a comedy video or a dancing video, 'cause I like to dance. And I always post my dancing videos and they get almost no views because I just do them for fun. And I was always like, “No one likes these, but I think they're fun.” So then I posted that before I went to work and I was like, “Oh, that's kind of funny.” And then it all started happening very fast. It was over Christmas so it felt like it was like the prime time when everybody was at home anyway. And then Trisha Paytas did it at one point and she had no idea where it started. So it's weird. I never thought I would start a dance trend.
I want to settle this once and for all because there's been this weird bit of misinformation—not because of you, but I think because of the TikTok search bar. The misinformation is that what you are performing is a reenactment of a Melissa McCarthy movie scene that does not exist. Why do you think this happened?
I don't know. I think you're right. I think it was the search bar. I was like, “Oh, that's a funny search bar.” It was like, “Melissa McCarthy want something that I want.” And then people kept saying I look like Melissa McCarthy. Which I'm like, I don't really think that's true at all. I mean, I love her so much. So I think it was the search bar. And then I think people were trying to find the video and they didn't know what it was called, because it wasn't anything. It was just a dance that I did. So I think it was a mix of that. And then people started making Tammy edits thinking that I had seen—I haven't even seen Tammy. I just literally like to make dances and I do improv, so I combine the two. It was so stupid and it's so dumb to be like, “I went viral for the gun video.” I've gotten recognized on the street, too.
That's so funny. What do people say?
Someone was like, “You look really familiar. Do you come in here a lot?” And I was like, “No, actually, I did a video.”
You're in so many people's subconscious from scrolling.
It reminds me of the Brittany Broski meme, like how she went viral for that one meme. That's how I feel. I mean, I love her career. I think that'd be so cool to have something like that.
Outside of the Melissa McCarthy of it all and whatever weird Mandela effect that was, why do you think this trend caught on?
I think it's easy to do and people love guns. ‘Cause I've done a dance before where I'm pretending to do a stickup and then that got a few views. But Jake Shane did my video and he was one of the first ones to do it. And then Soupytime also did my video. And they both tagged me, which was super nice of them. And then because people were seeing it multiple times...I have no idea. I don't know the answer.
You mentioned Christmas break. Everyone had a lot of downtime. Trisha Paytas did the dance, Molly Mae from Love Island did it.
Molly Mae did it?
Molly Mae did it. She had her baby do it.
That's so crazy.
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What's been the weirdest moment since this happened?
Definitely Trisha Paytas. And then the woman who played Martha in High School Musical did it. And then she followed me and she responded to my DMs. And also, he didn't do it, but Brian Jordan Alvarez followed me and I was like, “King, I love you so much.” I love him. And he kind of responded, which is fair. He was like, “Adore you” or something. And then I was like, I can't post anything, 'cause Brian's watching.
Along those lines, it's great when your work suddenly gets picked up by the algorithm, but then there is a “now what” moment. How have you approached figuring out what you want to do next with your TikTok?
I don't know. I had a big problem with that. It was so scary when it first happened, 'cause it's very scary to know that 12 or 20 million people have seen you. And what I love about doing comedy is it feels very gender-affirming and I don't think about being pretty or being a woman when I'm doing comedy. And so I didn't really have a concern about people viewing me in a certain way, but it was kind of weird. And then I didn't wanna do the trend a million times because I think that's kind of cheesy, but I do think it's cool that I got traction. And then also there's this lameness to TikTok where whenever anything happens on TikTok, in real life, all my coworkers are laughing at me and stuff.
But I don't know. I used to do these big elaborate sketches online and I would put all this work in and they didn't really move anywhere. And I don't think I want to do anything like that anymore. I don't know. I just wanna have fun. I posted this video the other day that I knew wouldn't do well because it was me pretending to catch a fish and then eat it, but it made me laugh. So I was like, I'm gonna just keep doing stuff like that where I'm making myself laugh.
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You're in the comedy world IRL, but then you have this comedy moment on TikTok. How much does success on TikTok translate?
So I'm doing standup at the same time and it's helped a little bit to meet people to be in the sketch-improv-comedy scene here. I've wanted to do shows with a couple different people and now that everybody and their high school girlfriend is texting me going like, “Hey girl, saw your video”—which is so sweet—I had one or two people where I was like able to be like, “I would love to do a show with you.” And they were like, “Totally.” But nothing firm.
How do you hope this could help your comedy career? What are your goals?
That's a good question. There's a couple different paths, right? TikTok is doing well. So it'd be really cool to continue to do TikTok and gain a following there. I love Brittany Broski's career. I would love to have something like that, but that's also a lot of pressure. I'm taking classes at UCB and Groundlings, so I would love to be on their teams eventually. I would love to book more shows doing standup. I'm kind of in the early stages of that, so I have a lot of different avenues.
Are you interested in acting in comedy or writing comedy or you'll take anything?
I'm in a writing class right now and it's very hard. But I like it a lot. I would go back to acting for sure. I think what I struggled with with acting for a while was body image and the way that the industry approaches your body as your vessel. It felt very demanding of how you can't get any tattoos or you can get tattoos, but only certain placements and stuff. And I find it very hard as someone who is gender non-conforming to be in the acting industry. I think I would love to approach it again from a perspective of like, I'm just gonna be who I am and then I'm gonna take what feels authentic to me. So I'm interested in acting in the future. I have some headshots booked and stuff.
We're in award season now and I don't know if she's really in anything, but someone's gotta make Melissa McCarthy do the dance.
I know and I'm obsessed with her. I would die if that happened.