The Backpack Kid

The Backpack Kid, born Russell Horning on December 19, 2001, is an American dancer, choreographer, and internet personality best known for popularizing the floss dance. He first gained wide attention as a backup dancer for Katy Perry on Saturday Night Live in 2017, where his floss move — swinging the arms side to side while twisting the hips in the opposite direction — went viral almost overnight and became one of the defining dance crazes of the late 2010s.

Unlike most artists on this site, Horning is not primarily a musician but a performer whose fame grew out of dance and social media, particularly Vine and later TikTok-era platforms. His visibility led to crossovers into music, appearing in or lending his persona to hip-hop and pop-leaning tracks, and to a landmark lawsuit against Epic Games over Fortnite's use of the floss emote without his likeness or compensation, a case that became a touchstone in conversations about dance-move ownership and viral culture.

His output as a recording artist leans toward rap and pop, trading on his internet-first fame rather than a traditional music career arc. Songs like «Flossin», «2 Litt», and «Balenciagas» reflect a persona built for short-form, dance-driven content rather than album-oriented songwriting, placing him closer to the influencer-musician hybrid figures that emerged alongside platforms like Vine, Musical.ly, and TikTok.