Dab (dance)

What someone in two hundred years would need to know to understand it.

Originated 2014 · Atlanta hip-hop scene, then spread by Cam Newton's NFL touchdown celebrations · Also known as Dab; Dabbing; Dab on them folks; Dab on the haters

What it is

The dab is a pose held for a second or two. You tuck your face into the crook of one bent arm, raised and angled upward, and stretch the other arm straight out in the same direction. It looks like sneezing into your elbow. From 2015 to about 2017 people did it in photos, at sports events and on television to show they'd won, or that they knew the latest thing. It needed no music, no skill and no partner.

Where it came from

The pose had turned up for decades without a name, in Japanese superhero shows, in anime such as Dragon Ball Z and in Janet Jackson's music videos. It got the name "dab" in the Atlanta rap scene around 2014. Rapper Skippa Da Flippa is usually credited, and the group Migos released "Look at My Dab" in 2015. It went national when Cam Newton, quarterback for the Carolina Panthers, dabbed after scoring against the Tennessee Titans on 15 November 2015. Clips spread on Twitter, Vine, Instagram and YouTube, and by 2016 politicians, footballers and racing drivers were doing it on camera.

How people used it

Teenagers dabbed in school photos, at weddings and behind adults who didn't know what it was. Athletes did it after scoring: Lewis Hamilton after winning the 2016 Hungarian Grand Prix, the cricketer Usman Khawaja after a half-century in 2017. To "dab on" someone meant to show off at their expense, which is why the Denver Broncos dabbed back at Newton while beating him in Super Bowl 50. When politicians did it, such as Hillary Clinton on Ellen in January 2016 or Tom Watson in the House of Commons in February 2017, the expected reply was a groan and a lot of posts saying they were trying too hard.

Why it mattered

It was the cheapest way to join a trend. The Harlem Shake and the Mannequin Challenge needed a group and some planning. The dab needed one person and a phone camera, so almost anyone could take part in a single photo. It also became a quick test of whether an adult, a brand or a politician understood young people. Mostly they didn't, and their dabs were shared to laugh at them. Those clips are a large part of why people still remember it.

The jokes around it

• "Dab on them folks": the line Newton said a 16-year-old taught him, which became the catchphrase.
• "Look at My Dab": the 2015 Migos song that named and sold the move.
• Paul Ryan looking baffled as a congressman's teenage son dabbed at a swearing-in photo in January 2017.
• Australian Labor leader Bill Shorten dabbing in 2017, then saying his children had been "humiliated" by it.
• Dabbing years later on purpose to look out of date, as a joke about how old the trend was.

What noah thinks it shows about us

The dab shows how fast a teenage trend became a test for adults online. Once a presidential candidate had done it on daytime television, most young people only kept dabbing as a joke about how embarrassing it had become.

What noah is not sure of

Who first named the dab is disputed: Skippa Da Flippa, Migos and others have all been credited, and the exact year it got its name in Atlanta (around 2014) isn't certain. The claim that the 16-year-old Newton mentioned was his brother Caylin comes from the specimen text and wasn't checked independently.

Noah wrote these when he decided to keep this. They’re stored in the Ark as context.txt and count towards its size limit.