No one knows how to start a craze quite like a creator on TikTok. There are whole trend cycles — cottagecore and coastal cowgirl, for example — that wouldn’t exist if not for the platform. The latest trend taking over the FYP isn’t an aesthetic, though — it’s more of a movement. This month’s viral showstopper has come straight out of London, with TikToker Sabrina Bahsoon (aka “Tube Girl”) earning millions of views for hyping herself up on the British subway system. Her videos, which are self-taped while taking advantage of the train’s inadvertent wind machine, are inspiring people to push themselves to be more comfortable in public spaces. Here’s how to do it.
Who Is “Tube Girl” Sabrina Bahsoon?
Though she’s had a TikTok presence for some time, it wasn’t until Bahsoon’s viral Aug. 13 video romanticizing her commute that the creator was given the affectionate nickname “Tube Girl.” Bahsoon (@sabrinabahsoon), 22, moved to the U.K. from Malaysia as a child and graduated with a law degree over the summer, though she admitted to her 542,000-plus followers that she “hated” what she was studying. She’s since done modeling stints for work.
In that first video, Bahsoon lip-syncs to Nicki Minaj’s verse in “Where Them Girls At” by David Guetta as she ignores her fellow tube travelers to record herself dancing with fast-paced angle changes and wind-swept hair, almost as though she were in a music video. “Being the friend who lives on the other side of the city so you gotta hype yourself up during the commute,” she captioned the TikTok, which had more than 768,300 likes and 9.9 million views as of Sept. 25.
Fans React In The Comments
Judging by her attitude in the video, it seems as though Bahsoon did a solid job hyping herself up on her own, but nothing compares to the compliments she received in the comments. “I need a confidence like you,” replied @subash4562. “How does one look THAT fabulous on a subway,” commented @milanicosmetics. “Social anxiety is afraid of you girl,” said @flowerg1rl7, to which Bahsoon responded, “As it should be I’m vibingg” along with an emoji of a smiley face wearing glasses. Cool girl energy at its finest.
The Trend Goes Viral
The same day, the creator recorded another video on the tube featuring the same Nicki Minaj verse, this time with the caption “Hot girls don’t have a license / We take public transport.” With over 485,800 likes and 3.3 million views, the back-to-back videos quickly solidified Tube Girl as TikTok’s newest obsession.
However, according to Know Your Meme, Bahsoon didn’t begin referring to herself as Tube Girl until Aug. 26 when she recorded another video in — you guessed it — the tube. By the end of September, videos tagged #TubeGirl had been viewed over 750 million times.
How To Do The “Tube Girl” Trend
Since making a splash on the FYP, the mesmerizing series of videos sparked a self-confidence movement of users attempting to conquer their anxiety in public spaces. The trend is spreading beyond the tube as well, and has users like @hayleyybaylee putting their main character energy to the test on the New York City subway. “Channeling tube girl because that's the type of delulu confidence we all need,” the creator captioned the Sept. 12 video.
User @jeleniewska, on the other hand, brought the trend to Warsaw, and you have to commend the confidence — even though the train looked empty. Meanwhile, @hotstuffchandler took the Tube Girl energy to the sky on a very crowded Ryanair flight. Now that’s commitment.
If you want to film your own Tube Girl TikTok, keep in mind the creator records her videos in .5 zoom to give her content that fish eye meets music video vibe. Luckily, filming in .5 is pretty simple: all you have to do is zoom out before adding sound, then zoom out again, per @melissallgall.
Oh, and Bahsoon’s most popular tube video features a remixed version of Ayesha Erotica’s “Yummy” by @habz.fx, so if you hear the words “I’m the first lady of Juicy Couture” blasting from a commuter’s headphones, you might want to clear some space for them so they can live out their inner Tube Girl fantasy.
