I Am Jalaiah is a documentary about 16- year old TikTok star Jalaiah Harmon, who was born and raised in Fayetteville, GA. The three-episode documentary follows Jalaiah and her dancing career, and at 14, she created the viral dance The Renegade. The dance created was posted on Instagram. After the dance was posted on TikTok, Jalaiah noticed the dance moves other dancers did were not the same as the original. During the documentary, Jalaiah mentioned she never wanted to become rich or famous. All she wanted was to credit for the dance she created.
Jalaiah’s parents talked about how she loved dancing before The Renegade went viral. After only a few months of dance classes, Jalaiah made her way to the front of the ballet dance recital, which wasn’t easy to do.
Since Jalaiah didn’t have a huge following on Tik Tok, she eventually had to comment on several other accounts stating she was the original creator of The Renegade. Her comments went unnoticed. Towards the end of 2019, Tik Tok star Charli D’amelio met Jalaiah at a basketball game. They talked about no one giving her credit for the dance she created. Later, Jalaiah was invited to do her original dance with Charli and Addison Rae. While they danced, Charli and Addison introduced Jalaiah as the original creator of the Renegade, and asked people to give her the credit she deserved.
Jalaiah is currently filing to copyright her dance.
I enjoyed learning about the story of Jalaiah and how the dance she created went viral. I highly recommend the I Am Jalaiah Documentary because it taught me to be sure to get the rights to my creative work before posting or sharing online, and it will also help others.