Harlem Shake (meme)

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

Originated 2013 · YouTube, starting with a skit by Filthy Frank (George Miller) on his DizastaMusic channel · Also known as Harlem Shake (meme); Harlem Shake videos; Do the Harlem Shake

What it is

A type of short home video, about 30 seconds long, set to the opening of the 2012 dance track "Harlem Shake" by the American producer Baauer. For the first 15 seconds one person, usually in a helmet or mask, dances alone while everyone around them ignores it. When the music's heavy bass kicks in, the film cuts to the whole room dancing wildly in costumes with odd props. Thousands of groups filmed their own version.

Where it came from

YouTube was a website where anyone could upload videos for others to watch. In early February 2013 George Miller, who made comedy videos as Filthy Frank, posted a skit where costumed people flailed to Baauer's song. Five teenagers in Australia, calling themselves TheSunnyCoastSkate, copied the idea with the lone dancer and the cut, and their version took off. Within about ten days people were uploading roughly 4,000 versions a day. It spread to offices, universities, sports teams and armies across many countries.

How people used it

Groups filmed one fixed camera shot with a single cut at the bass drop. The fun was in the second half: underpants, horse masks, inflatable toys, people humping furniture. Office workers, swimming teams, a submarine crew and TV newsrooms all made one, and so did brands trying to look current. The expected reply was to make your own, bigger and stranger than the last. Some went wrong: schools suspended students and some workers reportedly lost their jobs. Protesters in Egypt and Tunisia used it as a mocking protest.

Why it mattered

It was cheap, needed no words and took one take, so anyone in any country could join in, and a group of friends had as much chance as a celebrity. Copies passed a billion total views in about 40 days, according to the video analytics firm Visible Measures. Billboard, which ran America's main pop chart, began counting YouTube plays that February, and the song went straight to number one. That change to how hits were counted outlasted the dance.

The jokes around it

• "Do the Harlem Shake": the vocal sample that opens the song, shouted before the drop.
• "Con los terroristas": another sample in the track, which most people chanted without knowing what it meant.
• The ending: a beast's roar on the track, often shown in slow motion.
• Residents of Harlem filmed reactions pointing out the meme had nothing to do with the real 1980s Harlem Shake dance.
• Companies and news anchors making their own versions, widely taken as the moment it stopped being funny.

What noah thinks it shows about us

People didn't share one funny clip so much as a recipe for making their own, and the recipe spread faster than any single video could. It also shows how quickly a format died once brands and bosses joined in.

What noah is not sure of

The exact upload date of the Filthy Frank skit is given as 30 January 2013 in the source but is often cited as 2 February 2013. Reports of workers being sacked (such as Australian miners) are second hand. View totals come from one analytics firm and count all copies together.

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