HARLEM SHAKE
Harlem Shake (meme)
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Not to be confused with Harlem shake (dance).
For the Baauer song, see Harlem Shake (song).
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The Harlem Shake is an Internet meme in the form of a video in which a group of people performs a comedy sketch accompanied by a short excerpt from the song "Harlem Shake". As a meme, the video was replicated by many people, using the same concept, and this rapidly led to it becoming viral in early February 2013,[1] with thousands of "Harlem Shake" videos being made and uploaded to YouTube every day at the height of its popularity.[2]
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.[2][3] The video started a viral trend of people uploading their own "Harlem Shake" videos to YouTube.[4] The teenagers' video was, in its turn, a follow-up to a video by a YouTube comedy vlogger named Filthy Frank[3][5][6] which featured a section where several costumed people danced to the song "Harlem Shake" by Baauer.[7][8]
Concept
Cambridge, UK; images of one of 4000 videos a day uploaded at the peak of the meme's popularity.
The videos usually last between 30 and 32 seconds and feature part of the 2012 song "Harlem Shake" by American electronic musician Baauer. Baauer's song starts with a 15 seconds intro, a bass drop, then 15 seconds with the bass, and a lion roar at the end of the first 30 seconds. Usually, a video begins with one person (often helmeted or masked) dancing to the song alone for 15 seconds, surrounded by other people not paying attention or seemingly unaware of the dancing individual. When the bass drops, the video cuts to the entire crowd doing a crazy convulsive dance for the rest of the video. The dancing style should not be confused with the original Harlem Shake dance.[9][10] Additionally, in the second half of the video, people often wear a minimum of clothes or crazy outfits or costumes while wielding strange props.[11][12]
Success
The success of the videos was in part attributed to the anticipation of the breakout moment and short length, making them very accessible to watch.[13] The Washington Post explained the meme's instant virality by referring to the jump cuts, hypnotic beat, quick setups, and half minute routines.[14]
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 two people; 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.[15][16][17][18]
History
Creation
This meme was established by five teenagers from Queensland, Australia registered on YouTube as TheSunnyCoastSkate.[2][6] As more people replicated the original video and uploaded their own versions to YouTube, Harlem Shake became an Internet meme.[2]
Viral spread
On February 10, the upload rate of Harlem Shake videos reached 4,000 per day. As of February 11, about 12,000 versions of the popular Internet meme had been uploaded to YouTube, garnering over 44 million unique views. By February 15, about 40,000 Harlem Shake videos had been uploaded, totalling 175 million views.[2]
Baauer's single reached #1 on the iTunes America chart and #2 on iTunes in the UK and Australia on February 15, 2013.[19]
The Harlem Shake meme has spread in many countries, including the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, Germany and much of Europe,[8] Russia and Eastern Europe,[20] China,[21][22] India,[23][24] Latin America, [25] the United Arab Emirates,[26] and Jamaica.[27]
Legacy
The unexpected success of Harlem Shake caused Billboard to bring forward its plans, following two years of discussions, to incorporate data on YouTube views as one of three metrics used to calculate the influential Billboard Hot 100 chart. This marked an important recognition that YouTube now plays a vital role in shaping cultural trends, defining hit songs ahead of radio programmers. Songs like Gangnam Style and the Grammy Award-winner "Somebody That I Used to Know" by Gotye owe much of their success to the new phenomenon of video virality.[28][29]
In consequence of this significant change, Baauer's Harlem Shake made its debut at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on February 21, 2013. Without the change the song would only have debuted in the Top 15.[30][31]
The success of Harlem Shake also highlights a change of direction for music rights holders. With the exception of a takedown notice issued when established artist Azealia Banks tried to upload her own version of the track,[32] Baauer and his label, Mad Decent records, instead made use of YouTube's Content ID database to assert copyright over the fan-made videos and claim a proportion of advertising revenue in respect of each one.[8][32]
Gangnam Style, like other videos that preceded it, was a corporate, top-down traditional campaign. By contrast, the grassroots, bottom-up Harlem Shake has been described as a symbiotic viral meme,[17] where open culture and business coexist.[32] The short length of the video, 31 seconds in most cases, impacts directly on the duration of advertisement that can precede it, which in turn limits advertising revenue.[33][34][35]
In addition, the comparatively short life cycle of this kind of video meme means that by the time a traditional advertising agency or brand has put together its response to a current trend, it is likely that the trend will have long since peaked.[36]
Reception
Initial response
Numerous commenters have compared the Harlem Shake to "Gangnam Style".[37][38] But the business magazine Forbes pointed out that unlike "Gangnam Style" and other notable hits from 2012, Harlem Shake is more of a meme, since a wide variety of groups and individuals have uploaded variants of the dance.[39]
Martin Talbot, Managing Director of The Official Charts Company in the UK, described "Harlem Shake" as a "phenomenon", the first ever "crowd sourced video" to significantly drive sales of a song. Previously, as happened with "Gangnam Style", there was always an initial video created by an artist which would start a dance craze that was subsequently adopted by fans.[16]
Projected lifespan
The Atlantic magazine declared the "meme murder[ed]" when the mainstream Today television program broadcast their version of the Harlem Shake on February 13.[12]
The Los Angeles Times cited a number of reasons why it felt the meme was nearing its peak, including what it described as an "extravagant" departure from the meme's humble origins, adoption by a very broad demographic including the elderly, choreographed corporate versions by ad agencies and marketing departments, apparent boredom of video participants, and significant departures from the original formula, such as the use of multiple camera angles and visual effects.[40]
After numerous companies and startups began uploading their own Harlem Shake videos for what appeared to be promotional purposes, the business magazine Forbes advised them to produce their own original content instead of variants of the same video. It stated that there were too many versions already on YouTube, and that such publicity efforts could become "lost amidst all the noise."[39]
Similarly, Ad Age begged advertising agencies not to "attempt to surf on the now-crashed viral wave."[41]
Ad Age later identified sixty advertising agencies exploiting the meme, calling it "played-out" after Pepsico released a Harlem Shake video featuring dancing soft drinks. Gabrielle Levy of UPI called the Pepsi ad "a bridge too far," noting that low production values had been "part of the charm" of the meme. Time asked, "do you really want to open a can of soda after it’s done the Harlem Shake?"[36][42][43]
A KQED blog declared on February 19 that the phenomenon had "jumped the shark" after heavy exposure in the mass media and a plethora of "forced and forgettable" efforts.[44]
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,[45] a squadron of the Norwegian Army;[46] basketball players from the Dallas Mavericks,[40] and LeBron James and the Miami Heat[47][48] whose version was called perhaps "the best ... [o]r at least the most irreverent" by Matt Eppers of USA Today;[49] IMG Academy American football players,[50] the Canterbury Crusaders[51] and Auckland Blues rugby union sides;[52][53] football players from Manchester City[54][55] and Swansea City;[56] and the colleagues of CNN newsanchor Anderson Cooper, the last of whom received a Twitter shout-out from Baauer himself.[12] Cooper showed video of his staff performing the dance, while declaring himself "horrified" and "uncomfortable" about it.[57] Other participants in the craze included the University of Georgia swim team, whose video received at least 28 million views,[19] music producer and international DJ Markus Schulz,[citation needed] "a senior community,"[58] NASCAR drivers Jeff Gordon[59] and Jimmie Johnson,[60] musicians Matt & Kim,[46] musician Azealia Banks,[61][62][63][64] the staff of The Daily Show,[65] Ryan Seacrest, Stephen Colbert,[14][66][67] Rhett & Link,[68] members of the WWE,[69] and EastEnders actors Himesh Patel and Ricky Norwood.[70][71]
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.[72][73]
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.[74] The same day, Australian singer Cody Simpson uploaded a video of his crew and him doing the Harlem Shake in his tour bus.[75]
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".[76]
On February 22 in Tel Aviv, 70,000 people danced during a "pre-Purim street party."[77][78]
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.[79] It was the couch gag for the "Gorgeous Grampa" episode.[80]
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.[81][82]
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.[83][84]
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.[85][86]
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.[87][88][89]
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.[90][91]
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.[92][93]
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".[94][95][96]
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".[97][98]
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.[99][100][101][102]
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.[101][102][103][104]
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.[105][106]
