After all those years of people practising the Bird Dance, the Macarena, that Gangham Style dance, various line dances and whatever other dance trends that have plagued modern society, along comes a new dance craze that requires little dancing skills. ‘Harlem Shake’ has wormed its way through the internet and become a viral sensation sweeping multiple nations, and sucking up internet bandwidth at what must be a record level.
The premise is simple: A lone dancer begins to move to the opening sounds of a little tune done by electronic artist Baauer. Then, the song hits high gear and everyone around the lone dancer joins in, dancing in manic often sexually explicit ways, wearing wacked out costumes and letting loose. And, in just over 30 seconds it’s over. That’s it. That’s all. There is no more. And, thousands of videos of people in various size groups, from two to two hundred and more have popped up on YouTube, pushing videos of cute cats and babies eating lemons on the back burner for now.
Will the madness never end? It probably will in a few months actually, and then we will be on to a new craze of some kind. But what will it be? Dare we even ask.