The archive · Marketing & Growth · Marketing decision · 2021
Champion and Jalaiah Harmon reverse the Renegade to reroute its credit
Champion joined TikTok's July 2021 creator protest by having Renegade originator Jalaiah Harmon perform the viral dance backwards, flipping credit toward her.
Champion
What it had to solve
In July 2021 Black content creators on TikTok refused to choreograph new dances, calling out a new form of cultural appropriation: viral challenges such as The Renegade had made white influencers famous while their real creator, Jalaiah Harmon, received no recognition. Champion, a brand that says it advocates for true champions, wanted to reverse the inequity rather than merely comment on it.
How it works
In July 2021 a group of Black content creators on TikTok refused to choreograph new dances, calling out a new form of cultural appropriation on the platform. The movement pointed at The Renegade Challenge, a viral hit that had transformed the careers of white influencers while its real creator, Jalaiah Harmon, received no recognition at the time.
Champion, a brand whose positioning says it advocates for true champions, wanted to reverse the inequity rather than add another statement. It teamed up with Harmon and reversed the Renegade as a sign of protest: the dance itself performed backwards, inverting the challenge that had made its creator invisible.
The act took the protest into the same format as the original offence — a dance challenge on TikTok — so participating meant replaying the reversal. The campaign was recognised in the D&AD Awards archive as a brand using its platform to return credit rather than to claim it.
Why it lands
- Refusing to dance would have been an absence; performing the dance in reverse was an act people could watch, learn and share.
- Inverting the choreography made the point physically legible — the same moves, the same fame, but aimed back at the creator.
- By teaming with Harmon, Champion gave the protest its rightful author instead of speaking for her.
- A brand that advocates for true champions had to side with the uncredited one; the act matched the positioning.
What it did
The reversal made the protest concrete in the medium where the injustice happened: rather than refusing to dance, the movement's symbol performed the hit backwards as an act of refusal, and the work entered the D&AD Awards archive.
What you can take
To protest an injustice inside a medium, invert the thing itself: reversing the stolen dance was more shareable than refusing to dance, because it replayed the wrong while pointing at who made it.
Since then
The Reverse Renegade joined the July 2021 movement that pushed TikTok's attribution of viral dances into public debate, and the case entered the D&AD Awards archive as an example of a brand protest built inside the offending medium. Its template — invert the contested object rather than condemn it — is the part that outlived the moment: the reversal keeps the dance and its creator in the same frame.
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