Vacation Music Video Trend: Why Friends Are Making Social Media Music Videos
- Bennett Creative
- 7 days ago
- 9 min read
It’s officially (2016) summer on social media. Feeds are starting to fill with airport wings, beach sunsets, iced drinks, linen outfits, Euro vacations, and captions that all start to sound slightly interchangeable. Travel content takes over every platform, some of it starting to look identical to the rest.
But at Bennett Creative, Austin’s video production company, a new format has started standing out because it’s way more fun than typical travel videos and slightly nostalgic while also being current. The vacation music video trend is exactly what it sounds like: groups of friends recreating music videos while on vacation. And let’s be honest, to a bunch of video production nerds and social media content creators, this sounds like a blast to create. The idea of turning a trip into a creative project and seeing things through a creative lense can heighten the experience.
People are lip-syncing through cobblestone streets, turning hotel hallways into choreographed walk-throughs, dancing in kitchens, running through beach towns, and cutting it all together into something that feels like a pop video that happned to be filmed on a trip.
The song this trend is mostly tied to is Beauty and a Beat by Justin Bieber on TikTok but often other notable songs like Mama Mia by Abba, as seen on Instagram. Two reasons, Justin Bieber is still hot from Bieberchella and because these songs already feel like memories. Beauty and a Beat was a summer anthem of yesteryear that most people on social media easily recognize. Same with Mama Mia - it screams Greek vacation while also hitting that part of your brain that takes you back in time.
And that’s really the core of this trend: it turns travel into storytelling while still leaning into fun nostalgia.
What is the vacation music video with friends trend on TikTok and Instagram?
The vacation music video social media trend is a style of travel content where friends recreate or reimagine a music video while on a trip, usually by lip-syncing, acting out scenes, and filming short clips that are later edited into a cohesive sequence.
Unlike traditional travel content, which tends to focus on documentation—what the place looks like, where you went, what you ate—this trend focuses on experience framing. The trip is no longer just recorded. It is structured like a narrative.
A walk through a city becomes a chorus moment. A pool day becomes a bridge. A rambunctious group dinner becomes a montage sequence. The vacation stops being a series of events and starts feeling like a storyline.
This shift is why the trend is spreading quickly across TikTok and Instagram Reels. It’s not just visually appealing—it’s structurally satisfying. It gives people a way to turn fragmented travel moments into something cohesive without needing professional production.
It’s also a throwback to the early aughts when youth everywhere would spend their summer creating music videos with their friends to kill time. It does take some planning and editing, but what a way to remember your summer or vacation.
Why is the vacation music video trend going viral right now?
To understand why this trend is resonating, you have to look at what came before it.
Travel content has become incredibly repetitive. The same sunset shots, the same café aesthetic moments, the same “walking through Europe with a tote bag” clips. Even when the locations change, the format doesn’t. People will scroll past that so fast unless it’s their bestie doing the posting.
The vacation music video trend breaks that pattern because it introduces something travel content has been missing: something playful and engaging.
A song provides structure. It gives emotional pacing. It tells you when something should feel like a beginning, a build, or a climax. That alone makes even ordinary moments feel cinematic.
But there’s a second layer that matters just as much. This trend allows people to perform experience without fully staging it. That balance between authenticity and structure is where modern content performs best.
It’s also highly social. Instead of one person documenting a trip, everyone becomes part of the content. That shift—from observer to participant—is a big reason these videos feel so engaging when you watch them.
What songs are people using for vacation music videos?
Song choice in this trend is less about what’s trending and more about what feels instantly recognizable. Most groups gravitate toward music that already carries cultural memory. Nostalgic pop, high-energy choruses, or songs that are so widely known they don’t need explanation.
That’s why tracks like Mamma Mia show up so often in coastal Europe travel videos or chaotic group trips. The song already feels like movement. It already feels like something is happening.
Similarly, Beauty and a Beat tends to appear in poolside edits, nightlife sequences, or hotel room transitions because it naturally matches fast pacing and playful energy.
What’s interesting here is that people aren’t using music as background. They’re using it as structure. The song determines pacing, mood, and even which moments matter. That’s what makes the editing process so intuitive once the footage is captured—the music is already doing half the storytelling work.
Just keep in mind, music licensing. If you’re a brand or making money off your TikTok, Instagram or YouTube account, using trending audio like Justin Bieber can get you muted or even sued. It might not feel as on trend to use a licensed song, but it will be worth it.
Why are people recreating music videos on vacation instead of filming normally?
Traditional travel content is passive. It documents what happened. This trend is active, engaging and frankly, fun to watch. It’s not just more images of old cathedrals and baguettes, it’s people running down cobblestone streets singing to Justin Bieber. Instead of filming “a day in the trip,” people are now filming scenes of a shared narrative. That difference might sound subtle, but it changes everything about how the memory is experienced later.
A normal clip of walking through a city is forgettable. The same clip synced to a chorus, with friends lip-syncing and laughing mid-shot, becomes something else entirely. It becomes something you'll watch again and again. And something the people capturing the content will never forget.
There’s also a psychological shift happening. People are no longer satisfied with simply remembering a trip. They want to re-experience it through structure. Music provides that structure in a way photos never could. And because the format is inherently collaborative, it also strengthens group dynamics. Everyone contributes. Everyone appears. Everyone becomes part of the final output.
How do people actually recreate a vacation music video?
There’s a misconception that this trend is completely improvised—like people are just wandering through a vacation and somehow magically syncing up to a pop chorus. In reality, the best vacation music videos are lightly planned. Not over-produced. Not storyboarded like a commercial shoot. But definitely not accidental either.
Most groups start with the song first, because everything else flows from that. And once a track is chosen, people begin mapping out the structure of the trip in a very informal way.
These videos rely heavily on lip-syncing and rhythm-based movement. That means timing actually matters more than people expect. Friends will often rehearse choruses loosely—just enough to know when a beat drop hits or when a lyric cues a change in movement. It’s not choreography in a traditional sense, but it is rhythm awareness.
You’ll also see groups naturally assigning moments to different parts of the song. A chorus might be reserved for a walking sequence where everyone is in sync. A verse might become individual cutaways. A bridge might turn into slower, cinematic clips or emotional shots. Even if no one says it out loud, the structure of the song starts shaping how the trip is filmed.
That’s what makes the final videos feel so cohesive. They aren’t random clips stitched together—they’re clips captured with the music already in mind.
And while spontaneity still plays a role (some of the best moments are unplanned reactions or laughs mid-lip sync), the backbone of the video is usually intentional enough that the rhythm holds together in editing. In other words: it’s not fully staged, but it is definitely directed in real time.
Why are people using #2016 in vacation music videos?
One of the most interesting offshoots of this trend is the rise of hashtags like #2016—often appearing under vacation music video posts, especially ones using nostalgic pop songs.
This isn’t random. It’s nostalgia signaling. Bennett Creative has talked about how nostalgia has been trending on social media for a while - it’s a whole vibe people are tapping into on socials.
For many people, 2016 represents a very specific internet and cultural moment: early Instagram aesthetics, peak Tumblr influence, Vevo music video creation, Vine-era humor, and a very different era of pop music dominance. It was also a time when music videos themselves felt more culturally central—something everyone watched, referenced, and recognized instantly.
So when people recreate music videos on vacation today, tagging #2016 is less about the actual year and more about the feeling.
It signals:
carefree group trips
early social media energy
peak pop nostalgia
main character summer culture
and a slightly ironic longing for a pre-algorithm internet era
In a way, the vacation music video trend is partially powered by that nostalgia loop. The songs people choose, the styling, even the editing pacing often echo that era of internet culture—fast cuts, big energy, unfiltered fun.
So the hashtag becomes a shorthand for what the video is really trying to capture: not just a vacation, but a feeling of being in a moment that already feels like a memory.
Why are people adding VEVO watermarks to their vacation music videos on TikTok?
One of the more oddly specific—and very internet—details in this trend is the sudden appearance of fake VEVO watermarks on vacation music videos. You’ll see it in the corner of clips: a small VEVO logo stamped over the footage like it’s an official music release. It doesn’t mean the video is actually affiliated with a record label.
The joke is the point.
People are borrowing the visual language of official music videos—especially the polished, commercial look associated with YouTube-era music releases—and applying it to personal music videos that are often unpolished and chaotic. That contrast is what makes it funny.
A group of friends lip-syncing Beauty and the Beat while running through a beach town doesn’t look like a professional production. But slap a fake VEVO watermark on it, and suddenly the entire thing becomes ironic. It’s pretending to be a music video while very obviously being just a group trip that wanted to have some fun.
There’s also a nostalgia layer here. For a lot of people, VEVO instantly signals a specific era of internet culture—early YouTube, official music video uploads, and a time when watching a video felt more linear and less algorithmically chaotic. It carries a sense of legitimacy and structure, even if it’s just a watermark.
So when creators add it to TikToks, they’re not trying to fool anyone. They’re referencing that era of official music videos, nostalgia and blending it with today’s completely informal, self-made content style.
What makes a good vacation music video actually work?
The most successful versions of this trend share a specific quality: they don’t feel over-controlled. There is structure, but it’s soft. There is intention, but it’s loose. The content feels like it emerged from the trip rather than being imposed on it.
That balance is what makes it engaging. If it feels too choreographed, it stops feeling like a memory. If it’s too random, it loses rhythm. The best versions sit right in between.
There’s also humor built into imperfection. These videos don’t rely on perfection to be entertaining. They rely on recognition. You recognize the dynamics, the friendships, the energy of being on a trip with people you know well. That relatability is what makes the format so shareable.
Is the vacation music video with friends trend just for influencers?
Not really, and that’s part of why it has spread so quickly. This is not a creator-only format. In fact, it often performs better when it’s not created by influencers at all. It feels more authentic when it’s just a group of friends documenting something for themselves first and an audience second.
That accessibility is what turns it from a trend into a behavior. Once a format becomes something anyone can do without special skills or tools, it stops being niche and starts becoming cultural.
Honestly, brands could lean into this trend as well. Think office party lip syncing to Justin Bieber, or maybe your team travels for work conferences. This could be a great opportunity for team building (and flashing some logos?) - see a city together while having fun. Not sure how to make this happen for your team? A social media agency like Bennett Creative can help you put this together with filming, directing and editing.
What this trend means for content creators and brands
While this started as a social media trend among travelers, it reveals something important about where content is going. People are no longer satisfied with passive documentation. They want something fun, something engaging and nostalgic. Not heavily produced content, but just enough to make moments feel intentional.
That shift matters for brands working in video production, social media marketing, and content strategy—especially in fast-moving creative markets like Austin. The most effective content now lives between storytelling and spontaneity. It is structured enough to guide attention, but flexible enough to feel real.
The vacation music video trend is one version of that balance, but it won’t be the last.
Take The Trip, Make A Video
The vacation music video trend works because it turns travel into something more than documentation. It gives memory a rhythm. It gives experience structure. And it gives groups of friends a shared way to turn real moments into something watchable, rewatchable, and meaningful.
At a time when most travel content looks the same, this format stands out not because it’s more polished—but because it feels more human.
And that’s ultimately where content is heading: less about perfection, more about participation, creativity, and having fun.
Need help making content while also having fun? That’s where Bennett Creative comes in. We love our job of combining video production with social media. Content creation that taps into nostalgia, trends and engagement is where we thrive and we’d love to help you get noticed on social media.