For nearly two decades, Dancing with the Stars has billed itself as a competition about celebrities—or at least people you might have heard of at one point in your life—finding the rhythm they never knew they had. Since 2005, the formula has been airtight: a salmagundi group of retired athletes, former sitcom actors, onetime movie stars, and the occasional politician pair up with professional Latin and ballroom dancers to compete each week for the ultimate prize: the mirrorball trophy.
If you’ve ever happened to catch an episode, you might admit you were mildly entertained, but between the sequins, the spray tans, and the C-listers wielding capes while attempting a spirited paso doble, it was a guilty pleasure at best. For most of its run, the show was spoon-fed to a demographic who reveled as much in the over-the-top Bruno Tonioli gesticulations, the Tom Bergeron dad jokes, and the occasional Brady Bunch star quick-stepping into the present day as they did the actual week-to-week progression and eliminations. According to The New York Times, the show’s audience had a median age of 63.5 in 2022—a generation who came of age in the variety-show era and valued wholesome family programming at a time when gathering around the TV after dinner was a tenet of American life.
But during the last few seasons, something kind of shocking happened: The show managed to break out of the family room and enter the zeitgeist.
Gen Z started meme-ing routines on TikTok. The show began casting influencers with a history of going viral (Charli D’Amelio, JoJo Siwa, Harry Jowsey, Alix Earle); relevant athletes that were in their prime, not past it (Iman Shumpert, Ilona Maher, Stephen Nedoroscik, Jordan Chiles); and buzzy reality stars (Ariana Madix, Charity Lawson, Joey Graziadei) and expanded its definition of nostalgia casting to include aughts emblems like Allyson Hannigan, Jason Mraz, Jason Lewis, and Wayne Brady alongside charming old timers like Reginald VelJohnson and Barry Williams.
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The choreography got edgier and more athletic, the music less wedding-DJ and more Top 40. And crucially, the commanding cadre of pros—the backbone of the show who often seemed to be encouraged to retreat in order to let their partners shine—moved to the fore and started amassing giant social media followings, turning them into bankable influencers and, ironically, stars in their own right.
Female pros like Jenna Johnson, Witney Carson, Britt Stewart, Emma Slater, Rylee Arnold, and Daniella Karagach have millions of followers between them and arguably have emerged as the real draw of the show. Karagach in particular is often credited with helping revitalize the franchise with her challenging choreography and her 2021 partnership with basketball icon Iman Shumpert, whose winning freestyle routine was hailed by ESPN as “historic.”
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This rebrand wasn’t totally accidental. After 30 seasons on ABC, Dancing with the Stars moved to Disney+ in 2022, a glossier and more modern home where it felt less like legacy network fare and more part of the streaming culture that most young people rely on to watch television. (To be fair, it does air on ABC now as well after outcries that its core viewership didn’t have Disney+ and didn’t want to pay for it.)
The show also leaned hard into potentially viral moments: same-sex pairings (Siwa and Johnson; Gleb Savchenko and Drag Race star Shangela), dance clips built for TikTok, and behind-the-scenes content of the pros and stars meant to live as much on your phone as it does on TV.
There’s also been a shift in tone. What once felt a little cringey now feels knowingly campy, a subtle but crucial difference. The show is still sparkly and over-the-top, but it’s owning it instead of being embarrassed by it. In a cultural moment where pop-culture maximalism is back—just look at Gaga, Sabrina, Chappel, Doecchi, even Taylor trying to get a piece of the pop pie with her Showgirl shenanigans—the kitsch of the ballroom doesn’t seem so analog. The stars genuinely seem excited to be there, and the camaraderie is more palpable in recent seasons, which sends viewers a message that this is low-stakes fun and maybe even a cool thing to do—because anything is cool these days if you own it.
And let’s not forget the “showmance” factor, a key piece of the equation that captures fans’ attention. Not only are some of the hottest and best pros married to one another with young families of their own (Johnson and Val Chmerkovskiy; Karagach and Pasha Pashkov, Maks Chmerkovskiy and Peta Murgatroyd), but others have linked up romantically with their assigned partners, causing fans to go bananas. Last season, model Brooks Nader had chemistry with fellow hot-person pro Savchenko, and they openly dated. In 2022, professional dancer Britt Stewart was paired with actor Daniel Durant, the third-ever deaf contestant in the show’s history. They’re now happily married. During season 33, The Bachelorette’s Jenn Tran had palpable chemistry with her partner Sasha Farber and they dated for almost a year. The list goes on.
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By essentially moving its platform online, DWTS has fostered rabid social media communities. The show’s Reddit boards regularly debate and obsess over the pros and their personal lives, world-build around dream casts, and post in-depth quizzes and opinion polls. Over on Instagram, accounts dedicated to past seasons and pro-dancer stan pages abound.
But mostly, it’s the real accounts of the professional dancers that people can’t get enough of. Jenna Johnson, for example, has more than 1 million followers who take every opportunity to gush about her husband, Val, their toddler, their home, their trips, and her outfits. Of course, the parasocial nature of these exchanges can also turn dark, with followers weighing in on everything from her parenting choices to her changing body.
It’s not just the newer pros that are keeping the show relevant. Julianne Hough, a longtime fan favorite, now serves as co-host. Her brother, Derek Hough—often positioned as a latter-day Gene Kelley, who has won the most mirrorball trophies in the show’s history—joined the judging panel alongside Bruno Tonioli, Carrie Ann Inaba, and head judge Len Goodman (who passed away in 2023). Mark Ballas, another OG favorite who comes out of “retirement” for the right partner, has been all over social media this month goofing off and teasing choreo with Mormon reality star Whitney Leavitt, who he’ll be dancing with this season.
It’s also time to give DWTS long overdue credit for the work that goes into being a pro on the show. Not only are they choreographing challenging routines weekly across a spectrum of styles, but they’re teaching their partners from scratch. If you’ve ever tried to teach someone a skill you’re adept at and they’re not, you’ll know what a feat that can be.
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It’s true that DWTS is still sequins and spray tans. But it’s also viral, self-aware, and maybe even cool. When the season 34 cast was revealed earlier this month, fans said it might be the best group in the show’s history, thanks to both buzzy stars and the lineup of pros that includes almost every fan favorite and some new faces too, such as Jan Ravnik, one of Taylor Swift’s most beloved backup dancers.
Dancing With the Stars premieres tonight, September 16, and it’s only a matter of time before it goes from being your mom’s favorite show (“Gee, I don’t know any of these people!”) to yours. So just own it.