Origin story
Where tip toeing in my Jordans came from
Tip toeing in my Jordans began as an AI-generated fairy-tale reel that Tatyana Tereshchenko posted on Instagram as @stroinaya on August 27, 2026. It played over its own audio for a month. On September 29 a TikTok user set the tiptoeing to Riff Raff's 2014 song, on October 1 it broke out on X, and within a week came face swaps and explainers from Know Your Meme, LADbible and NBC News.
Updated October 11, 2026
The short version
- First posted
- August 27, 2026, as an Instagram reel
- Credited to
- Tatyana Tereshchenko (@stroinaya), a self-described AI artist and filmmaker
- Original sound
- The reel's own audio. The Riff Raff song came later.
- Became a meme
- September 29, 2026, in a TikTok edit
- Breakout post
- 9.8 million views on X in five days, from October 1
- How it was made
- AI video generation, with no actors and no set. The tools have not been named publicly.
Tip toeing in my Jordans timeline
The AI reel goes up on Instagram
Tatyana Tereshchenko (@stroinaya) posts the barn scene as a collab reel over its own audio, as a showcase for an AI filmmaking course. No Riff Raff yet.
OpenTikTok sets it to Riff Raff
TikTok user @6aimbot9 lays "Tip Toe Wing In My Jawwdinz" under the tiptoe with a dollar-store melatonin caption, and the post passes 850,000 views within a week.
OpenX turns it into a format
A repost by @itsjusttimbro reaches 9.8 million views and 11,000 likes in five days, and caption versions start piling up.
OpenOther faces take over the dance
Edits swap in streamer Asmongold on X and Supernatural's Sam and Dean on TikTok; the Supernatural version passes 365,000 views in a day.
OpenKnow Your Meme and LADbible trace it
Know Your Meme publishes its entry on the meme, and LADbible follows the clip back to the @stroinaya account and its AI course.
OpenNBC News confirms it is AI
NBC News reports that the clip is AI-generated, credits Tatyana Tereshchenko as its creator, and notes that it took viewers days to work that out.
Open
Dates come from the posts themselves: X, TikTok and Instagram post IDs carry the moment they were published, so we decoded each one instead of trusting reposts. View and like counts are the ones Know Your Meme and NBC News recorded.
Who made the original tiptoe clip?
Tatyana Tereshchenko made it. She posts on Instagram as @stroinaya, and NBC News calls her a self-described AI artist and filmmaker. Instagram lists the reel as a collaboration between her account and three others; Know Your Meme names the Neuroferma and Anna Glinskaya pages among the co-posters.
It was made to sell a skill, not to start a joke. The Russian-language caption argues that you no longer need a camera, actors, a big team or a big budget to build a fantasy short, and it ends by pointing viewers to a course called Neuroferma. LADbible found other AI fairy tales on the same account, including takes on The Frog Prince and Rapunzel.
As of October 11, 2026, we had not found an interview in which she talks about the meme or names the tools behind the clip. This site has no connection to her or her collaborators, and we don't host the reel; the link at the top of this page goes to the original on Instagram.
What happens in the full scene?
The meme shows only a few seconds of a longer story. In the full reel, a young woman sits in a barn heaped with straw, frightened to tears, when a small impish man creeps up, shushes her and starts tiptoeing around her. He turns the straw into gold coins, she kisses him, and he becomes a handsome prince.
That ending isn't the Brothers Grimm plot, where the little man spins straw into gold for the miller's daughter and then comes back for her firstborn. The reel borrows the look of a 1980s fantasy film and the outline of the fairy tale, and invents the rest.
Why did the Riff Raff song stick?
Because the dancer was already tiptoeing. The original reel had no Riff Raff in it. Once the September 29 TikTok put the 2014 hook "Tip Toe Wing In My Jawwdinz" under the dance, the pairing stuck, and the song's title became the meme's name.
The story of the songWhat does the meme mean, and how do people use it?
Mostly it stands for doing something sneaky, smug or ridiculous while acting as if nobody can see you. Know Your Meme describes it as a stand-in for someone dancing like a fool, often as a distraction or an odd reaction, and LADbible quoted meme.com's summary: "smug, playful mischief."
NBC News collected captions about creeping downstairs at 2 a.m. for a snack, walking the aisle at Payless to test a pair of $15 shoes, and acing a roadside sobriety test. On October 1 a Spanish-language post on X used it for Argentina's president and drew more than 18,000 likes. The shape stays the same: one line of setup, then the little man tiptoeing in.
The formats you'll see
Caption over the clip
The simplest version: one line of text, and the dance does the rest.
Face swaps
The dancer becomes someone else. NBC News listed Sam and Dean Winchester, Wednesday Addams, Gypsy-Rose Blanchard and even Ronald McDonald.
Green-screen cutouts
The figure is lifted out of the barn and dropped into other videos, as LADbible pointed out.
Real-life re-enactments
People copy the walk themselves, no AI involved; NBC News linked to re-enactments in its October 7 report.
New AI scenes
Some creators generate fresh clips of the same character, building lore for a movie that doesn't exist, as Know Your Meme noted.
What the meme is not
A scene from Rumpelstiltskin (1987)
The Cannon musical is real and stars Billy Barty, but the tiptoe dance isn't in it.
An old Russian film
One of the early guesses Know Your Meme recorded. The clip was generated in 2026.
The source of Twin Peaks' dancing man
A viral October 5 post on X asked exactly that. The timeline runs the other way: Twin Peaks is from 1990, the reel from 2026.
Footage of a real performer
No actor was filmed. Both people in the barn were generated.
Something Riff Raff made
The pairing came from TikTok user @6aimbot9; the original reel used its own audio.
Other names for the meme
Search for any of these and you end up in the same barn:
- Tip Toein' In My Jordans: the hook, and the name Know Your Meme files it under
- tip toeing in my Jordans, tiptoeing in my Jordans: the plain spellings people type
- #tiptoeinginmyjordans: the hashtag on TikTok
- AI Rumpelstiltskin: the start of Know Your Meme's entry title
- Rumpelstiltskin tiptoe man: LADbible's headline phrase
- Rumplestiltskin: a common alternate spelling, used in TikTok tags and even in parts of Know Your Meme's write-up
- Rumpelstiltskin 1987: a mix-up with the film, untangled on our what-is page
Tip toeing in my Jordans origin FAQ
When did the tip toeing in my Jordans meme start?
The AI clip was posted on August 27, 2026. It turned into a meme on September 29, 2026, when a TikTok set it to Riff Raff's song, and it spread across X and TikTok in the first week of October.
Who created the tip toeing in my Jordans video?
Tatyana Tereshchenko, who posts as @stroinaya, made the original AI reel with a group of co-posters. The meme format, meaning clip plus song plus caption, came from TikTok and X users a month later.
Is the clip really AI?
Yes. Know Your Meme confirms it, NBC News reported it on October 7, 2026, and the creator presented the reel as an example of AI filmmaking.
Which AI tool made it?
That hasn't been made public. Neither the original post nor the coverage we found names the software.
Did the original video have the Riff Raff song?
No. The Instagram reel plays over its own original audio. The song was added in a TikTok edit on September 29, 2026.
Can I watch the original?
Yes, on Instagram, through the link at the top of this page. We don't host or re-upload it.