How ‘Raising Your Ya Ya Ya’ Became a Way of Life Online
In the first verse of “I’d Rather Be Me” from the musical Mean Girls, there’s a note that’s frankly a bit too high for your average voice to sustain. It requires a clear tone and solid belt — a vocal technique that comes from using your chest voice to hit a high note for an extended period of time — and can be challenging even for those trained in musical theater. Jodie Langel, a Broadway actor and vocal coach, has spent the past 10 years teaching methods and skills to hit these notes. On TikTok, one simple trick has skyrocketed an average TikTok post into one of the biggest runaway memes right now. And it all starts with three easy sounds: ya ya ya.
Langel has been making TikToks about vocal coaching since 2021. So when she attended the Texas Thespian Conference in November, she thought nothing of posting one of her “90 Second Musical Transformations” on the app. In the clip, one of the students is trying to nail the difficult section of “I’d Rather Be Me.” The lyrics, sung by the character Janis, tell a gathered audience to “raise your right finger/And solemnly swear,” and are a powerful part of Janis’ declaration to school bullies and the general teenage population that she’s done with the bullshit of high school. But in Langel’s coaching session, the vocal student struggles with the high notes on the words “right finger,” causing her voice to crack. Langel’s answer: getting the student to sing the words “raise your ya ya ya,” while pointing straight to the sky. After a few successful practice runs, she tries the real line again, and absolutely nails it, causing her fellow students to cheer.
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In the month since Langel first posted the clip, the video has been chopped up, remixed, reposted, and used for so many edits that it’s transformed from a quick one-off to a meme 200 million views deep. “Raising your ya ya ya” has managed to permeate every invisible boundary between fandoms and genres online. Sports franchises like the Phoenix Suns, Las Vegas Raiders, and the Golden State Warriors have all used Langel’s sound as beat drops to earth-shaking edits of their greatest plays. There’s Sabrina Carpenter “Ya Ya Ya” edit compilations, Arcane and Squid Game versions, and re-creations by everyone from Broadway actors to Disneyland characters. On social media platforms like X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, and TikTok, raising your ya ya ya means being unburdened, with many users posting their ya ya ya as affirmations. “Consider my ya ya ya raised,” read one comment on an edit that’s been liked more than 16,000 times. “You know what, hell ya ya ya,” read another. Raising your ya ya ya isn’t just an activity. It’s a state of mind.
But how does it actually work? Langel tells Rolling Stone raising your ya ya ya is just one of several vocal techniques she implements to get singers to change the structure of their mouths, vocal cords, or facial expressions in order to hit a song. “When I coach, I listen for tightness. Where is the throat constricting? Specifically for that one girl and ‘I’d Rather Be Me,’ your mouth goes into fight or flight mode because you’re nervous,” Langel explains, using her face to mimic a tight growl. “Using [ya ya ya] opens your mouth into a pure vowel. And by pointing up, it directs the singer to aim [their voice] up. Physicalization always helps the singer, and it gets her to free her body.”
In fact, it’s something Langel herself has both used and still practices with her own vocal coach. (Coaching is like therapy — even coaches need coaches.) Langel, 52, says she’s spent almost her entire life in the world of musical theater. Growing up in Ossining, New York, just 35 miles north of Broadway, she would often travel to the city to see shows like Cats and Gypsy. After graduating from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts at 22, she was cast as Cosette in Les Miserables. “I had to learn how to use my voice safely eight times a week,” she tells Rolling Stone. “And it was my passion to sing and sing healthily, and it’s my passion to teach others how to use their voices safely.”
Voice teachers are close to their own genre of content online, mainly because the format of video platforms means they can make content on anything from reacting to student auditions to dissecting a celeb performance to giving viewers tiny tricks. But according to Langel, one of the reasons she began posting her coaching sessions was because she noticed musical-theater performers who could sing but lacked the technical knowledge to keep their voices safe throughout the process. It’s something that hasn’t been helped by how belt-heavy some of the newest Broadway songs have become. It’s why the ya-ya-ya technique, which Langel uses to combat nerves around big notes, often makes major differences in a singer’s performance. It keeps them loose, confident, and free.
Unsurprisingly, that spirit of freedom is one of the things that has followed the meme since it began. And while some creators resent when their genuine practices get poked fun at online, Langel has been praised by her now 3.1 million followers for just what a good sport she’s been. She didn’t know the video was viral until the waitress at her Christmas dinner asked if she was the creator of ya ya ya. “I’m in the mountains in Blue Ridge, Georgia, and I’m like, ‘Whoa, this is gonna be something,’” Langel says. But while there are simply too many new edits popping up for her to see them all, she says she absolutely loves that her vocal trick is something that even casual singers might see and try. “I’m just so tickled and touched by all of it. I mean, you gotta be. It’s the fact that it’s spread this much and there’s joy and love of music and singing,” Langel says. “How can I not just be so overwhelmed and touched by all of it? How can I not think that that’s incredible?” If this trend is going to provide so much joy through music and teaching and education, then I’ve done my job.”
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