ATEEZ Wooyoung's unexpected dance break stirs debate on the famous 'New Thing' challenge plagiarizing a move from 'Say My Name'

Did Wooyoung possibly hint at a plagiarism controversy involving the famous 'New Thing' challenge?

On an online community forum, a netizen uploaded a post containing a fancam of ATEEZ's Wooyoung dancing a part of their song "Say My Name" during a dance break in "The Real." The move was preceded by Wooyoung making a 'copy' gesture used by street dancers to signal that the following move was originally created by another dancer.

The debate initially began when fans noticed a similarity between a dancer's moves to Zico's "New thing" on 'Street Man Fighter' and those from ATEEZ's "Say My Name."

As seen in the clips below, the 'copy' gesture made by Wooyoung is primarily used when calling out the opponent's moves that aren't original. On 'Street Woman Fighter,' Gabee had made the same gesture after YGX copied her moves of taking down one's pants.

The original poster shared that others had previously wondered if ATEEZ was doing the 'New Thing' challenge after seeing their performance of "Say My Name" at a concert in Daegu.

Based on the 'copy sign,' netizens are speculating that Wooyoung was indirectly conveying a message that the moves from 'New Thing' were originally from "Say My Name." Meanwhile, others also remarked that the moves in "Say My Name" weren't original in the first place, because it was already an existing 'shopping cart' dance famous in the U.S. 

Netizens also debated whether the choreographer of "Say My Name" had simply incorporated a trendy dance move or not. Some, however, argued that the 'shopping cart' dance in the video was significantly different from 'New Thing,' which was instead "identical" to "Say My Name."

What are your thoughts?