On December 10, the Serenade of the Seas departed the Miami harbor. It is not a normal cruise: On board were hundreds of passengers who, for the ensuing nine months, will live aboard the ship as it travels to 150 ports of call, 60 countries, and seven continents. “All four corners, one epic voyage,” reads Royal Caribbean’s marketing materials for “The Ultimate World Cruise,” where prices range from around $54,000 to $117,000 per person.

There have been round-the-world cruises before, the first almost exactly 100 years ago. There has not, however, been a world cruise that has captivated the internet as this one has, creating what many people online are referring to as its own real-time “reality show.” More than a dozen passengers and crew members have begun documenting their travels via TikTok and posting updates from the ship, while a handful of loyal recap accounts distill all the information into bite-size news updates. A few of the passengers came aboard with existing followings, like South African influencer Amike Oosthuizen, whose mother was a cast member on The Real Housewives of Pretoria, or University of Alabama graduate student Brooklyn Schwetje, who was already posting travel content prior to the cruise. For the most part, though, those who started posting about their journeys on the cruise watched their TikTok follower counts jump from basically zero to more than 100,000 in the span of a few weeks. On #cruisetok, the passengers are characters, the updates are “plot,” and the actual destinations are simply backgrounds on which to project the maximum amount of drama. As of January 22, videos hashtagged with #ultimateworldcruise have garnered a combined more than 340 million views.

It began just as the Serenade of the Seas embarked on its journey in December, when multiple videos about the cruise went viral. Among them: a video called “things that stress me out the 9mo cruise,” in which the poster listed everything from “alcoholism” to “serial killers” as potential threats, and a bingo card that included both a first and a second Covid outbreak, a pirate takeover, a wedding, mass STDs, a mental breakdown, and, naturally, a podcast upon return. One creator started a series called “Ship Happens” where she meticulously documents everything that happens on the boat, such as when a scheduled stop at the Falkland Islands was canceled due to rough seas or when the passengers spotted some whales; another has christened herself the “Sea Tea Director.”

This, obviously, is sort of an uncanny way to discuss regular people who are simply living their lives and going on a (yes, very extravagant) vacation. But it is an increasingly familiar one, as TikTok continues to determine what millions of people are looking at, and when. The Ultimate World Cruise’s closest relative might be the annual ritual of Bama Rush, where every August........

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