PanamaTimes

Sunday, Oct 25, 2026

This Band's TikTok Song Is The Anthem For This Year: "Fuck 2020"

Avenue Beat's song making fun of 2020 started as some fun on TikTok — but it soon became so popular they had to do a full version.
At the end of June, a 90-second TikTok video of three women singing how they felt about this turbulent year went mega viral.

The catchy (and extremely relatable) song begins:

December 31st, I grabbed a beer / Threw it up, said, "2020 is my year, bitches" /
And I honestly thought that that was true / Until I gave this motherfucker like a month or two /
This is getting kind of ridiculous at this point.

The tune is from a trio of 22-year-olds - Sam Backoff, Savana Santos, and Sami Bearden - from Quincy, Illinois, who have been in a band together called Avenue Beat since they were 14 years old.

The group, who opened for Mason Ramsey last year, said that when they performed the song for their TikTok video, they had written nothing more than 90 seconds — they only decided to complete it when it went viral.

"We were just having a week and everything that could go wrong was going wrong," said Santos, "and I remember sitting on my couch just being like, You know what? I need to write a song about this."

The group said they put it on TikTok because they assumed no one would let them release the song as it has tons of swear words. "It'll live on TikTok," said Bearden.

But the next morning the song went viral with 4.5 million views — at which point TikTok temporarily took it down for review. (The group appealed and it was later reinstated.)

As the song went viral, they decided they had to put out a second verse. Writing the whole song took them about an hour and a half, they said.

"When it started blowing up," said Santos, "everyone started hitting us up like, 'You have to finish this today!' and we were screaming."

"We quickly tried to finish it as fast as we could."

Not only did the TikTok go viral on its native app, but a Twitter user downloaded the video and shared it there, where it drew another 3 million views.

The video struck a chord with people not just because of the lyrics but also because of the images that are behind them in the TikTok. There are photos highlighting the Australian fires, police brutality incidents in the US, the postponed Tokyo Olympics, President Trump, and more.

People have called the song a bop and many are finding the bleak lyrics and footage extremely relatable amid this dire year.

The line "Yo, my cat died and a global pandemic took over my life" is about Bearden's cat named Gumbo, whom she adopted from a shelter.

"I've had a lot of people DM me saying, like, 'I've just lost my pet and I'm so mad about it and this song helped me blow off a little steam,'" said Bearden. "And I was like, 'Solidarity,' because losing a pet is not it. It's not fun."
Newsletter

Related Articles

PanamaTimes
0:00
0:00
Close
Advertising trick: Pepsi’s Harrier Jet Commercial Led to a $700,000 Court Fight
Why 2027 Could Be a Strong Year for Stocks—and Why the Forecast Is Fragile
Trump’s Top General Seeks an Exit Strategy From Iran War, Report Says
Brock Lesnar Retires From Wrestling, Closing a Career of Rare Athletic Range and Lasting Controversy
Trump-Era Policy Shifts Test the Boundaries of U.S. Institutions
Weight-Loss Drug Boom Tests the Limits of Prescription Advertising Rules
Breaking With the Past: One of the World’s Smallest Countries Changes Its Name
AI Is Remaking the US Economy, From GDP Growth to iPhone Prices
Cuba’s Grid Fails Again as Fuel Crisis Deepens
Nazca Lines Flight Crash Kills Thirteen as Peru Suspends Aerodiana
OpenAI Faces Demands for Full Disclosure After Models Breach Hugging Face
FIFA’s Private-Investment Plan for World Cup Rights Draws European Revolt
Why Americans Queue for $15 Ice Cream and a $100 Caviar Pint
OpenAI Sued After ChatGPT Allegedly Discouraged Emergency Care Before Near-Fatal Embolism
Miliband Sets Climate and International Law at Centre of UK Diplomacy
Trump Readies New Tariffs as Temporary Global Levy Nears Expiry
Morgan Stanley Builds a Wall Street Lead in AI Infrastructure Finance
High Prices Push Coffee Drinkers Toward Whole Beans and Home Brewing
Spain Defeats Argentina in Extra Time to Win Second World Cup
Venezuela’s Earthquake Devastation Turns U.S. Investment Opportunity Into a Thirty-Seven Billion Dollar Reconstruction Challenge
Ukrainian Drones Strike Wildberries Warehouses Deep Inside Russia
The Ledger Will Not Trust on Faith
Trump Administration Pressures Banks to Restrict Financial Access for Undocumented Immigrants
The Ten World Cup Finals That Defined Football History
Smartphones Are Getting More Expensive, Sales Are Collapsing, and Even Apple Admits: "Prices Will Rise"
The AI Race Enters Its Infrastructure Era
Colombia Influencer Dies After Cosmetic Procedure at Unlicensed Bogota Salon
A Quiet Bastille Day: France Grapples with World Cup Heartbreak and Leftover Fireworks
Spain in Ecstasy: "We Feel Unbeatable, We Taught the Whole World a Lesson"
On the Island That Did Not Yield to Trump, There Is No Electricity, and 10 Million Live in Darkness
World Cup Visitors Turn American Big-Box Stores Into Souvenir Stops
Anthropic Reengineers Agentic Architecture to Shift Autonomous Workplace Automation to the Cloud
Global Crisis Alert: Escalating Middle East Tensions and UK Political Upheaval
Japanese Technology Firm Fujitsu Launches Advanced Artificial Intelligence Tool for Corporate Disclosures
South Africa Officially Launches Nationwide Campaign for Highly Contested Local Government Elections
United Kingdom Commits Additional Funding for Unexploded Ordnance Clearance in Laos
Singapore Announces Stringent New Greenhouse Gas Regulations for Commercial Cooling Systems
Cambodia and Thailand Hold High-Level Border Security Talks at United Nations Headquarters
Myanmar Military Government and China Sign Major Agreement to Upgrade Media and Cultural Cooperation
Knife Attack at Swiss Train Station Leaves Three Injured in Suspected Act of Domestic Terrorism
Transnational Extortion Gang Threatens Canadian Police With Army of One Thousand Armed Operatives
Australia Imposes Forty-Two-Day Quarantine on Cruise Ship Passengers Following Deadly Hantavirus Outbreak
International Monetary Fund Unlocks Seven Hundred Million United States Dollars for Sri Lanka Following Economic Reforms
Australia Launches Record One Point Four Billion Dollar Lawsuit Against Chemical Giant 3M Over Contamination
China and Canada Foreign Ministers Meet in Ottawa in Effort to Stabilize Strained Diplomatic Ties
Indonesia Demands Urgent United Nations Security Council Reform Amid Escalating Global Conflicts
Extreme Weather Patterns Trigger Severe Drought in Madagascar and Destructive Flooding in East Africa
Indian State of Karnataka Faces Political Upheaval as Chief Minister Siddaramaiah Abruptly Resigns
Philippines and Japan Reaffirm Defense Ties as Crucial for Indo-Pacific Regional Stability
Norway Joins French Nuclear Deterrence Initiative in Major Shift for European Security Architecture
×