Fleetwood Mac Wholeheartedly Embraces a Viral TikTok Video — Finds Millions of New Fans In the Process

Fleetwood Mac performing live in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 2009. Photo Credit: Weatherman90

53-year-old rock band Fleetwood Mac has embraced the viral TikTok video that’s continuing to spread its 1977 “Dreams” track across social media, scoring millions of new streams and Gen Z fans in the process.

As many already know, an Idaho-based TikTok user named Nathan Apodaca posted the now-viral clip (under the handle “@420doggface208”) back on September 25th. Coasting peacefully down the street on a skateboard while sipping cranberry juice from the bottle, Apodaca set the brief video to “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac. Needless to say, the relaxed footage resonated with a substantial portion of TikTok’s approximately 100 million stateside users, having garnered a total of roughly 25 million on-platform views at the time of this writing.

Now, Fleetwood Mac has rallied behind the trend – and possibly laid the groundwork for other long-established acts to resonate with and reach young fans in the streaming age. A three-word tweet published on Fleetwood Mac’s official Twitter account – “We love this!” – has generated over 70,000 retweets and 500,000 likes thus far. For comparison, the London-based group’s pre-video tweets look to have garnered just a handful of interactions.

The dramatic social-media splash seems to have carried over to other Fleetwood Mac tweets, besides prompting more than a few (generally young) fans to post about their lengthy listening sessions.

73-year-old Mick Fleetwood has even gotten in on the action, joining TikTok, recreating the video, and nabbing millions of additional plays and nearly 200,000 followers for his trouble. (Ocean Spray, which is undoubtedly satisfied that its cranberry juice bottle and logo are being broadcasted to millions, has weighed in on Fleetwood’s rendition and gifted Nathan Apodaca a new car.)

Significantly, young fans’ unprecedented interest in Fleetwood Mac has translated into high-profile results outside of social media. “Dreams” was the 50th most-streamed track on all of Spotify today, as well as the 12th most-streamed Spotify song in the U.S. Weekly Spotify charts paint a similarly encouraging picture of the track’s enhanced reach, and the band’s monthly listener count has almost crossed 20 million.

Though the viral video appears to have risen to prominence because of its tranquil mood amid the pandemic, one would assume that post-coronavirus viral events will bring with them lucrative touring opportunities.

In a broader sense, the episode demonstrates the immense potential payoff associated with cultivating a social media presence, regardless of an act’s age or style of music. Personally following up on the trend – albeit ten days after the initial video debuted – cost little more than a few minutes and has produced all manner of meaningful effects for Mick Fleetwood and his band.

It all makes takedown demands or copyright claims seem downright foolish — though that has often been the knee-jerk reaction from legacy artists.

And it bears emphasizing that Fleetwood Mac’s newly tapped audience is decidedly different from its existing fanbase, consisting chiefly of people who were unaware of the group one month ago.