Anyone can create a dance challenge, but unless you’re Jalaiah Harmon or Charli D’Amelio, the odds of it going viral are… pretty low. That’s why NCT 127 fans and childhood friends Kia (18), Ariana (18), and Georjay (19) didn’t expect much to happen when they created the #KickItChallenge.

The Chicago natives shared a 28-second video, set to K-pop group NCT 127’s punchy new song “Kick It,” that was made purely for fun. “I was just posting it for my mutuals and for ourselves,” says Kia, who had around 5,000 Twitter followers at the time. But in just a few hours, the #KickItChallenge had gained 70,000 likes and inspired hundreds of fellow NCT fans, called “NCTzens,” to post their own versions. And then, on Wednesday (March 11), NCT 127 officially endorsed the challenge by recreating it themselves.

“I have notifications turned on for the NCT 127 Twitter account and when I saw it, I kind of went berserk and started crying,” Kia says, softly patting Georjay’s back as her friend wipes away happy tears with her sleeve. They’ve been tagged in so many posts that “my Twitter is broken now,” she giggles. While video-chatting with Teen Vogue, Kia and Georjay are sitting on Kia’s bed (Ariana is at school) and behind them, a vibrant pink wall is covered with posters of just a handful of the K-pop groups they stan: Monsta X, Seventeen, BTS, and ATEEZ.

A day after NCT 127 dropped their highly-anticipated second album, NCT #127 NEO ZONE, the girls were jamming to “Kick It” in Kia’s bathroom, getting ready to celebrate a friend’s birthday. “I heard the lyrics ‘Let me introduce you to some new thangs!’ and the video just popped into my head!” Kia says. The challenge is a fresh take on the popular “glow up” trends of the past few years, with an added dance element: a shoulder bounce move from the “Kick It” choreography, which originally gained popularity as part of Jalaiah Harmon’s Renegade dance.

Kia added the #KickItChallenge hashtag, posted the video to Twitter, and was so distracted by its popularity during dinner that she ended up taking her meal to-go. “I was trying to like or respond to everybody because they were saying such nice things and I don't like leaving people on read!” Sometime that night, NCT 127’s official Twitter liked the post and then, a little after 9 a.m. ET on Wednesday, members of NCT 127 posted their own version of the challenge. In the video, Chicago native Johnny crouches in the front as Kia while vocalists Doyoung and Jungwoo flank him on either side in place of Georjay and Ariana. They imitate the girls as Johnny covers the lens with his hand, and they return in flashy, embroidered bomber jackets, ready to hit the stage for their performance at the Houston Rodeo, where they performed “Kick It” live for the first time. The video currently has more than 2.9M views across Twitter and Instagram, and the group texted NCTzens on Thursday, asking them to try the challenge themselves.

Since the advent of social media, dance challenges have always existed in some form or another (remember the Harlem Shake?), but the rise of Musical.ly and now TikTok have made them more popular than ever. Fellow Korean pop group BTS was an early-adopter in embracing dance challenges wholeheartedly, using key parts of their choreography (called the “point” dance in K-pop) to create the #IdolChallenge, #CNS_Challenge and the #ONChallenge. Other groups, like ATEEZ and NCT 127 themselves have followed suit, but the #KickItChallenge marks the first time a K-pop group has participated in a fan-made challenge for their own song — not unlike what Doja Cat did recently in incorporating the viral “Say So” dance into her official music video.