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Harlem Shake (meme)

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Screenshots from a Harlem Shake video, showing the characteristic static jump cut from one dancer to a wild party after the song's drop.

|archiveurl=http://web.archive.org/web/20130424074859/http://youtube-trends.blogspot.com.au/2013/02/the-harlem-shake-has-exploded.html |archivedate=2013-04-24 |quote= attributed to a silly video from a vlogger named "Filthy Frank." Though it was another user named SunnyCoastSkate who then established the form we've become familiar with: the jump cut, the helmet, etc. }}</ref>

The form of the meme was established in a video uploaded on February 2 by five teenagers from Queensland, Australia known on YouTube as The Sunny Coast Skate. The video started a viral trend of people uploading their own "Harlem Shake" videos to YouTube. The teenagers' video was a follow-up to a video by a YouTube comedy vlogger named Filthy Frank which featured a section where several costumed people danced to the song "Harlem Shake" by Baauer.

This video is 30 seconds and crazy.

Success

This success of the videos was in part attributed to the anticipation of the breakout moment and short length, making them very accessible to watch. The Washington Post explained the meme's instant virality by referring to the jump cuts, hypnotic beat, quick setups, and half minute routines.

The Harlem Shake is technically very easy for fans to reproduce, as it consists of a single locked camera shot and one jump cut. Nonetheless, the simplicity of the concept allows fans considerable scope in creating their own distinctive variant and making their mark, while retaining the basic elements. In its simplest form, it could be made with just one person; a more sophisticated version might even involve a crowded stadium. Moreover, there is a level playing field for celebrities and fans alike, with no guarantee of success for either group. There is a strong vein of humour running through each video that is not dependent on language, further increasing its potential to spread virally.

Notable performances of the Harlem Shake

Various groups that shot videos of themselves doing the Harlem Shake included the staff of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, a squadron of the Norwegian Army; basketball players from the Dallas Mavericks, and LeBron James and the Miami Heat whose version was called perhaps "the best ... r at least the most irreverent" by Matt Eppers of USA Today; IMG Academy American football players, the Nebraska Cornhuskers football team and LSU Tigers football team, the Canterbury Crusaders and Auckland Blues rugby union sides; football players from Manchester City and Swansea City; and the colleagues of CNN newsanchor Anderson Cooper, the last of whom received a Twitter shout-out from Baauer himself. Cooper showed video of his staff performing the dance, while declaring himself "horrified" and "uncomfortable" about it. Other participants in the craze included the University of Georgia swim team, whose video received at least 28 million views, music producer and international DJ Markus Schulz, "a senior community," NASCAR drivers Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson, musicians Matt & Kim, musician Azealia Banks, the staff of The Daily Show, Ryan Seacrest, Stephen Colbert, Rhett & Link, members of the WWE, and EastEnders actors Himesh Patel and Ricky Norwood.

A video titled Harlem Shake (Grandma Edition), in which a man and his two octogenarian grandmothers dance, received over a million views online within three days. It was broadcast on the Today show and CNN.

On February 20, 2013, the cast of American reality television series Splash including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Katherine Webb, Ndamukong Suh and Louie Anderson also uploaded a video of them dancing on the clip. The same day, Australian singer Cody Simpson uploaded a video of his crew and him doing the Harlem Shake in his tour bus.

On Valentine's Day (February 14), developers at Moovweb released an open source bookmarklet that replicated the Harlem Shake online by making the items on any web page move. Soon after YouTube made its own version of the Harlem Shake by making the items of the page shake when the user searches for "do the Harlem Shake".

On February 22 in Tel Aviv, 70,000 people danced during a "pre-Purim street party."

On March 1, 2013, Fox uploaded the "Homer Shake" on YouTube, an animated video where members of the Simpson family danced to the eponymous song. It was the couch gag for the "Gorgeous Grampa" episode.

On March 3, 2013, Sony Pictures Animation uploaded the "The Cloudy 2 Shuffle" on YouTube, an animated video where characters from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 danced to the eponymous song.

The March 9, 2013 episode of Saturday Night Live substituted "con los terroristas" with "tofu burritos" and "do the Harlem shake" with "drink a vegan shake." Justin Timberlake appeared as his street performer character, dressed as a block of tofu.

On March 18, 2013, the cast of the Armenian TV series Kargin Serial uploaded their Harlem Shake on YouTube.

On March 23, 2013, Nickelodeon did their own version of the Harlem Shake at the Kids' Choice Awards, which was called the Kids' Choice Shake.

At the Hong Kong Sevens rugby tournament in March 2013, an entire stand of spectators took part in a Harlem Shake.

TV series Supernatural, starring Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles, did their own Harlem Shake version. It began with a normal shot of Jensen, dancing randomly, with Jared on his phone behind him, seemingly unaware.

The Harlem Shake was also performed in 'Sweet Dreams' the nineteenth episode of the fourth season of the Fox TV series Glee. The dance was performed by fictional students at the University of Lima, while Finn (Cory Monteith) monologues about life at college. Harlem Shake is listed as a featured song in the episode as it was not covered by the cast or released on a single or soundtrack album.

Performances of the Harlem Shake with unforeseen consequences

In February 2013, a New York boys' ice hockey team was forced to forfeit a first-round playoff game as a result of a Harlem Shake video uploaded to YouTube. The team's video, shot in a locker room, depicts scantily clad team members, notably, one player wearing nothing but a sock.

Two Israeli soldiers received prison sentences, and one was also relieved of his command, after they posted a video of soldiers performing the Harlem Shake around a cannon, even though they were reported to have notified their commanders of the project, taken care to ensure that no sensitive military equipment was shown, and sought approval for the finished video. The video was reported to have received a generally positive reaction from mainstream Israeli media and online.

In Russia, police arrested five people after they uploaded a video of themselves doing the Harlem Shake on a war memorial, an army tank from World War II.

A group of up to 15 miners in Western Australia were fired for breaching safety rules after uploading a video where they performed the Harlem Shake underground.

Following what was described as a Harlem Shake "incident" on a plane flying from Colorado to San Diego, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration launched an investigation. The participants claimed that they had sought permission from a flight attendant before the performance began, and that the seat-belt sign was off at the time.

In a controversial move, a student at St Hilda's College, Oxford lost her temporary job as a part-time library invigilator and student organisers were fined after a Harlem Shake video was filmed in the college library. By way of contrast, Professor Roger Ainsworth, Master of St Catherine's College, Oxford, praised his students for their version of the meme, which he described as "the best example of the genre, at least in the UK".

A religious education teacher at Caldicot Comprehensive School in Wales was suspended after a Harlem Shake video was posted online which allegedly showed him dancing with a lifesize cardboard figure of Pope Benedict XVI. According to Monmouthshire council the teacher may have behaved in an "unacceptable way".

The Washington Post reported that according to the National Coalition against Censorship, about 100 students across the US have been suspended for participating in various versions of the Harlem Shake Meme. NCAC Director Joan Bertin referred to the suspensions as "a rather disproportionate response by educators" to what she described as "teenage hijinks".

The Harlem Shake as a political statement

At the end of February 2013, hundreds of protesters chanted 'Leave! Leave!' as they performed the Harlem Shake outside the headquarters of Egypt's Islamist President Mohammed Morsi. In a separate incident, people were filmed doing the Harlem Shake in front of the pyramids. Four pharmaceutical students had been arrested the previous week for breaching decency laws by performing the dance in their underwear.

In Tunisia, after students in a wealthy suburb of Tunis filmed a Harlem Shake video in which they parodied Salafists and Gulf Emirs, the school director was suspended by the Ministry of Education. The resulting backlash saw the ministry's website hacked by activists, and according to some reports there were scuffles between Salafists and students wishing to perform the dance elsewhere in the country.

In the United States, U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's re-election team uploaded their own Harlem Shake video as part of his campaign to win a sixth term in the chamber in the 2014 midterm elections.

References

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