【Gary Eberhart Archives】

On TikTok,Gary Eberhart Archives videos filmed in public are nothing new. People record themselves on packed streets and college campuses, in coffee shops and parks. But recording yourself on public transport — especially while dancing — is enough to cause waves. London's Tube Girl has proved that.

If you've been on the app lately, it's likely you've seen a girl filming herself on London's underground trains, each video in 0.5 mode. She dances to upbeat songs by Nicki Minaj, ignores stares from fellow passengers, and touts confidence: "Romanticise your journey," she suggests in one video. "Trust me, no one actually cares."

SEE ALSO: When did it become OK to film strangers in public?

Behind the obsession

It turns out, people actually do care about her videos, but in the best way possible.

---

You May Also Like

---

---

Sabrina Bahsoon has gained TikTok popularity almost overnight for her brazen shows of confidence on the Tube. The 22-year-old from Malaysia, now living and working in London, posted her first viral Tube video in August. Now, her feed is littered with similar posts, with almost all garnering upwards of a million views. Comments call out her confidence ("How do u do this in a populated car ???? 😭"), windswept hair ("Where does the wind come from and where is this ? 😍😍😍"), and praise her style of filming ("the camerawork is so satisfying it’s scrumptiously made i rate 10/10").

Speaking to the BBC last week, Bahsoon, a law graduate from Durham University, said, "I think that the Tube Girl has already become something more than just dancing on the Tube. So I think it's about confidence and it's about being more comfortable with your authentic self."

Mashable Trend Report Decode what’s viral, what’s next, and what it all means. Sign up for Mashable’s weekly Trend Report newsletter. By clicking Sign Me Up, you confirm you are 16+ and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Thanks for signing up!

Enter: Tube Girl Effect

Now sitting at over 400,000 followers on TikTok, Bahsoon has snagged her first runway gig (making her debut at MAC Cosmetics' show during London Fashion Show) and been credited with creating a niche TikTok phenomenon. The hashtag #tubegirl has 281 million views and #tubegirleffect has over 70 million at the time of writing.

Credit: TikTok / @getoffmybacckk, @justlivingmylifeperiod, @jiayuejenny

In the latter camp are videos inspired by the creator. Across major cities, people are mimicking Bahsoon's distinctive videos on their own modes of public transport. Influencers like Abbie Herbert and Issey Moloney have posted their own renditions of the trend. They move the camera swiftly, use songs similar to Bahsoon's playlist choices, and often tag her in the captions.

---

Related Stories

---

• Are all men obsessed with the Roman Empire? We investigate.
• On TikTok, a blog celebrating girlhood is going viral
• In the age of TikTok, the female gaze has lost all meaning
• We're living through the age of delusion
• 'It's our free space': How queer youth can protect their joy online

Credit: TikTok / @bellasbunker

Bahsoon's original post may not have been built to spark a self-love movement but it has certainly blossomed into one. Many TikTokkers engaging with the trend write about using it to beat social anxiety, increase confidence in public, and how filming the video is changing their view of an otherwise dire morning commute.

For a while now, TikTok has plunged into the discourse of being "cringe". Some practice cringe comedy, while others propose TikTok as a way to embrace the cringe within us all. The Tube Girl effect seems to be a byproduct of this, essentially being proposed by followers as a way to embrace confidence and subvert social perceptions. It's also in line with a Very Online concept often purported by those of TikTok: the idea to not take anything, really, too seriously.

Dancing on the Tube or subway is a moment of being truly unapologetic and unbothered, say mimickers of the Tube Girl effect. It's a reflection of Bahsoon, as writes in one caption, "Personally i think I’m slaying and trusssttt nobody cares."

Topics TikTok

• Social Good
• Digital Culture
• Life
• Deals
• Shopping
• Science
• Tech
• Games

• Stop Preordering Video Games
• Best tablet deal: Amazon Fire Tablets up to $110 off
• Black celebrities ruled the 2025 Met Gala, and the internet loved it
• Apple employees can buy the Vision Pro at a 25 percent discount
• Things AMD Needs to Fix
• Apple employees can buy the Vision Pro at a 25 percent discount
• Apple employees can buy the Vision Pro at a 25 percent discount
• New Roombas 2023: 5 new robot vacuums (including 4 that mop) at every price point
• Elon Musk makes request to Reddit CEO to take down posts he didn't like
• X appears to be juicing MrBeast's views as Elon Musk tries to woo the YouTuber to the platform

• Corey Feldman dressed like the Grim Reaper for a bizarre 'Today' performance
• You may soon be able to buy more movie tickets on Snapchat
• AirPods to get 3 exciting new features
• Forget the iPhone 7, the iPhone 8 rumors have already arrived
• Your Note7 has been recalled. What should you do now?
• You won't have to wait much longer to replace your recalled Note7
• Ugg and Teva's new mashup 'sandals' are confusingly impractical
• Donald Trump gets the mobile game everyone imagined, and it's amazing
• iPhone 7's Lightning jack could be a durability liability
• We asked street style stars to guess British films and TV shows from just the outfits

• Best Sony headphones deal: Over $100 off Sony XM5 headphones
• Redux: An Ordinary Word by The Paris Review
• The 23 best '90s movies on Max for a totally rad night in
• Two Poems by Kathleen Ossip
• NYT Connections hints and answers for May 18: Tips to solve 'Connections' #707.
• New Roombas 2023: 5 new robot vacuums (including 4 that mop) at every price point
• Do Not Et Cetera by The Paris Review
• 'The Zone of Interest' review: A chilling portrait of complicity
• How to Squeeze the Most Out of Your iPhone's Battery
• Announcing Our Spring Issue by Emily Stokes

• 'The Last of Us' Season 2, episode 5: The spores are here!
• TikTok, tweens, and Sephora: Everything you need to know, according to the tweens themselves
• Galaxy AI isn't free forever. Here's when you'll start paying for it.
• Photographic Neuroses: Alec Soth's A Pound of Pictures by Gideon Jacobs
• Best tablet deal: Get the Google Pixel Tablet for $120 off at Amazon
• You can now pre
• Vesna by The Paris Review
• You Pose a Problem: A Conversation with Sara Ahmed by Maya Binyam
• Best Samsung Frame deal: Free Music Frame with Frame Pro art TV purchase
• Objective Correlatives by Stephen Shore