“Hamilton” has always had a way of going viral.
Even before the musical was an award-winning sensation, it had a life online. Its creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda, performed an early version of the opening number at the White House in 2009, back when the show was just a mixtape, drawing attention to the project when the video was posted on YouTube. In the early days of its Broadway run, outside the Richard Rodgers Theater, the original cast members performed mini-concerts under the hashtag #Ham4Ham. The appearances drew crowds in person, but they reached thousands (and sometimes millions) online.
Now, 10 years after it debuted on Broadway, with a theatrical release of the film version this month, “Hamilton” is still internet catnip. And the latest trend associated with it is a mixture of absurdity and sweetness that serves as both a tribute to the show and a loving critique of it, reflecting the complex space it occupies in pop culture today. It remains a revered object, but some of its earnestness has curdled.
What exactly is happening on “Hamilton” TikTok?
It starts with the song “Best of Wives and Best of Women,” near the end of Act 2, just as Alexander Hamilton is heading out to his fateful duel with Aaron Burr, and Eliza Hamilton is urging her husband to return to their bed, singing, “Alexander, come back to sleep.” He responds, “I have an early meeting out of town.” We of course know that “early meeting” will lead to his death.
In vertical video format, fans lip sync Hamilton’s part, but it goes beyond that. As Eliza pleads, these Hamiltons are sneaking out of their situations in silly ways. Windows have given way to doggy doors. In one video, posted by the Melbourne-based football club Collingwood, a woman crawls into an enormous laundry machine. In another, Hamilton falls off a horse into a water trough. Someone forewent the Hamilton costume for a Spider-Man suit. One person dresses their dog up as Hamilton while they do the Eliza part. The dog, for what it’s worth, does not lip sync. Nor does this cat, in a Hamilton costume made from yarn. The singer Laufey has made a version. So has the social media star Trisha Paytas.
According to Know Your Meme, the original came from a user whose screen name, actuallyhamilt0n, proves her fandom. Dressed as Hamilton, with what looks like a goatee that’s been scratched on, she stages the scene quite literally crawling out of a window.
Actuallyhamilt0n is actually Zoe Coyle, a 16-year-old in Ireland, who became a fan of the show in 2022 and now watches the filmed version on Disney+ about three times a week. When the concept for the “Best of Wives and Best of Women” lip sync came to her, she was already dressed up as the lead character — the goatee is mascara — and was looking for a song to perform on TikTok.
“Whenever I hear that scene I always think of it as him trying to sneak out,” she said on a video call. “So I was like, hmm, I could portray that.”
She recorded her video at 2 a.m. in her grandmother’s house, where six dogs were barking at her. Now friends call her “Ham,” and the school principal said, “I heard you’re famous.”
“I’m honestly shocked by my influence on getting people to climb out of the window,” Coyle said.
It’s mostly women playing Hamilton. That in itself is part of the gag. The musical number is essentially about a husband choosing his feud with Burr over his wife, even as he calls her the “best of wives and best of women” in the song’s concluding line.
Many of these TikTok videos deliberately portray him as a stereotypical bad boyfriend or spouse with wandering eyes. Some are more explicit, like one in which Hamilton appears to be taking a sexy selfie when interrupted by Eliza. The gender-swapping enhances the goofy critique of wrongheaded male behavior.
Despite the ways in which these TikTokers rib Hamilton for his actions, they are committing to the bit out of an enduring passion for the material. You have to really adore a musical to scribble on your face and don a costume, even a makeshift one.
It’s worth noting that Miranda himself has participated, lip syncing opposite his own wax figure and acting out the meme during a screening of the film. He understands that the jokes are based in genuine obsession. After all, “Best of Wives and Best of Women” is not the most well-known track on the cast album. It’s almost something of an interstitial, a plaintive beat before the tear-jerking finale. To have clocked that moment as the one to recreate implies constant listening.
Still, the strange mixture of parody and homage in these clips speaks to the legacy of “Hamilton” at this current moment. A decade out from the show’s Broadway debut, “Hamilton” remains beloved, but is no longer the sacred cow it was when it was hauling in Tonys and a Pulitzer. The Obama-era hope embedded in the text has soured in some ways, even if Miranda’s lyricism remains unparalleled.
These TikToks acknowledge how, out of context, “Hamilton” can seem cheesy. They take what is a truly dramatic moment and turn it on its head, upping the silliness. But instead of rejecting what some might deem cringeworthy, they welcome it with brash theater-kid enthusiasm that mocks with love.
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