Every few months there seems to be a new fad or trend that takes the internet by storm. When we were kids, the dance crazes were the “YMCA” and the “Macarena.” It seems like these days there is always something fresh to draw our attention.
At the start of last year, there were countless parodies of Carly Rae Jepson’s hit, “Call Me Maybe” that lasted until the Summer Olympics when the US swimming team did a cover of it. Once that became old, a new trend hit: Psy’s Gangnam Style. He even went on the Ellen show to teach her the dance while parodies filled up YouTube and the song was downloaded at least four million times.
The new trend taking America by storm is “The Harlem Shake.” This dance is only 31 seconds long and has blown through social media. Everyone from the Dallas Mavericks to Jimmy Fallon to T-Pain is doing their own version of the Harlem Shake. Even New Trier’s crowd at the last home basketball game did their own rendition of the dance.
The dance features one person doing their own move while people in the background act normal. Then the beat drops and everyone goes bananas. No choreography—just wild, jerking movements.
Even though “The Harlem Shake” was released in May 2012, it is only now becoming popular following comedian Filthy Frank’s parody. But this wasn’t the first time that we are hearing the Harlem Shake. Sean Combs first released the song, called “Let’s Get It,” more than ten years ago with rapper G. Dep dancing in the music video. Artists such as Nelly, Kelly Rowland and Bow Wow folded the dance into their choreography. Although G. Dep was the first to make the dance known, he is not responsible for making it popular; that was attributed to Al B.
Al B said that he came up with the dance in 1981 and referred to it as a “drunken dance.” The name for the song wasn’t even thought of by his producer, Baauer. There is a line in the song “Miller Time” by Plastic Little that mentions doing the Harlem Shake. The term got stuck in Baauer’s head and he used it to describe the dance.
According to a Yahoo news article, the residents of Harlem, New York aren’t impressed with the song. They find it offensive and that the public is poking fun of their culture. They also say that the dance is taking how they dance and making a joke of it.
“I don’t find the dance offensive,” said senior Jake Grossinger. “There is no real dance; it’s just people having a good time. If there was something called the Glencoe Shake, I’d be okay with that. This song and dance is just referring to a city.”
Junior Maria Dabrowski thinks that these trends are inevitable. “It’s in our nature to always try and one up each other. People will always try to top the latest, most popular video and try and get the most views.”
In order to fully understand why and how a video on YouTube becomes viral, knowing why and how a video becomes “old” is important.
“I think a trend becomes so popular so quickly because everyone is ‘doing’ the trend or ‘following’ the trend that after a week or two of that video or song or dance, it gets too familiar with people, so therefore the trend becomes ‘old.’ Also, with the Harlem Shake, such a simple dance can become as popular as it has become,” said junior Melissa Rizai.
Since trends can be popular one week and old the next, it brings up the question: why do so many people watch or make the videos in such a short amount of time?
“I think it’s amazing how the internet works and how videos can spread so quickly. I don’t spend a lot of my time watching these parodies and videos so maybe that is why I don’t find them as annoying as other people,” said Rizai.
There could also be another reason why people hop onto the trend bandwagons. “These videos are providing comic relief and an outlet for the stress that a lot of teenagers deal with,” said Grossinger.