What kind of dance style is the harlem shake? What is the Harlem Shake? To dance Gangnam Style means to cross a rather serious psychological barrier; the Harlem Shake only requires good company
Harlem Shake– a media virus that in a short time “struck” the entire Internet space. An abyss of videos in which strangely dressed (or even naked) people twitch strangely for 30 seconds.
History in brief
There is such an area in the provincial city of New York. Harlem. Populated by guys of politically correct skin color, whose main occupation is street dancing. Because a bunch of all kinds of these very street dances, according to legends, came from there. Including the Harlem Shake in the early 80s. XX century. Then there was another surge of interest and popularity in 2001 thanks to the rapper G.Dep. “Harlem Shake” received its second wind thanks to a set of accidents:
The first chance
One Harry Bauer Rodriguez ( creative pseudonym– Baauer), seems to be a music producer (not a big one), in 2012 he mixed the track “Harlem Shake”. Average, according to Rodriguez himself.
Second chance
A certain Fithy Frank (disgusting Frank), a Japanese comedy video blogger, “parodied” something there and posted the video on his blog. The “comedy” of the parody, like the blogger himself, is as funny as a psychiatrist’s diagnosis. It was in January '13, as the story goes.
Accident three
Five young Australian guys were bored. We decided to have fun by making a video about our leisure time. “Harlem Shake” was playing on the phone. One of the guys decided to parody the blogger's clip.
It is not known why, but the video became very popular, in a short time it gained a record number of views and immediately acquired a bunch of clones. “Harlem Shake” immediately became a new media virus, displacing the “Gangam Style” video from South Korean comrade PSY from its position.
Intrigue
It is now completely unclear who or what Disgusting Frank was parodying. According to some - someone or something called "DizastaMusic". Which is hardly true.
Because some sources claim that DizastaMusic is the nickname of this same Frank on the Youtube.com service (the channel of such a user is there). And some argue that Fithy Frank and DizastaMusic are actually four completely different people. In Russian-language sources, they generally happily quote Wikipedia and each other. On foreign-Western Burzhunet sites, however, the situation is no better. USA Today, in its news about the new Internet craze, for example, does not mention anything at all about any such bloggers.
If you use common sense, it looks more like the Australians still have the palm, and all the discrepancies are explained by the attempts of different comrades to “get on” with the popular thing. Which Baauer has already managed to bring in significant money from the sale of the track.
Opinion of “experts”
Some experts immediately appeared and began to claim that the popularity of the video was based on the fact that:
"...Harlem Shake is radically different from other viral videos, such as the video for Gangnam Style, and represents a unique symbiosis of viral video and meme, combining elements of culture and business."
It’s somewhat strange, because there are a dime a dozen different nonsense that fit into this definition on Youtube. But they don't become memes.
Scenario
Most videos are based on the following scenario, which has already become a classic:
In a certain space (room, street, hall) there are several people busy everyday affairs or downright bored.
Among them, a man with a headdress that covers his entire face (motorcycle helmet, box, whatever) is dancing (more precisely, jerking chaotically).
At the phrase in the middle of the track “Now do the Harlem shake” (and a sharp musical transition), everyone present begins to jerk and go crazy in every possible way.
The video should end at 30 seconds.
Among the most popular versions are the version from the Norwegian army and from the “office plankton” of a foreign company.
“Harlem Shake” became the basis for mass flash mobs (publics), a topic for jokes and a cause of scandals (where would we be without this), because a number of organizations and companies began to fire people for such flash mobs at work. And appeared all over the world the new kind sports - to gather as many people as possible to the Harlem Shake.
During one of these attempts in Times Square in New York, the “most democratic in the world” police officers tried, in the best traditions of Sergeant Prishibeev, to disperse the illegally crowding citizens. As a result, it fits very organically into the action (in the video there is a patrolman in the foreground from 22-24 seconds).
What is the Harlem Shake?
What is Harlem Shake (or otherwise Harlem Shake)?
Harlem Shake (this literally translates to Harlem Shake with in English), and if in simple words, then this dance is very rhythmic, a little crazy. Where at first only one person dances, and then there is an insertion of a video where everyone is already dancing (jerking) ..)
What is Harlem Shake?
They say that Harlem Shake dance replaced by the most popular Gangnam Style.
Harlem Shake was invented by Australian teenagers, posted the video on the Internet, and a week later this video received 3 million views and many more videos like this appeared.
Harlem Shake dance is performed by several people, but only one person dances for the first few seconds. Moreover, he must wear a headdress, ideally a helmet.
Later all the other dancers join in. Distinctive feature The Harlem Shake dance consists of unusual poses and chaotic movements. In this case, the clip should not last more than 30 seconds.
Harlem Shake is dance, as well as a new Internet meme to replace the boring Gangnam. Let's see if the shake will catch up with it in popularity. And the name of the video comes from the name of the song the students dance to: it’s Baauer Harlem Shake (American song). In Russia, too, there are already followers of the new Internet dance wave - several similar videos filmed in different cities by different people (students, office workers, media workers, etc.)
Harlem Shake entered the top ten popular queries Google and Yandex in 2013. This infectious, crazy dance, whose movements resemble shaking, has its roots in the Harlem area in New York. It turns out that it was performed there in the 80s of the last century by a local alcoholic during streetball matches. In January 2013, this Internet meme was started by the popular You Tube video blogger Vile Frank, then a version of Australian teenagers appeared, and it is from them that the wild popularity of videos with the Harlem shake is counted. The history of Harlem Shake and the secret of its success is in this video.
Harlem Shake is an Internet video meme, as well as a song by the American artist Baauer.
Five funny Australian teenagers made a joke by recording a video clip for this song and posting it on YouTube here:
Another fashionable dance, for some reason it is called crazy and viral. Appeared on February 2, 2013. There is nothing beautiful or interesting in this dance. This Internet meme has become no less popular than Gangnam Style in 2012, a bunch of videos with such dances have already appeared.
The Harlem Shake song itself:
It is simply translated: Harlem shake, only the word shake itself, which in English has multiple meanings, is taken literally here. Shaking.
Here's the story. One day in rainy weather, five Australian teenagers, out of boredom, began to randomly dance to the tune of the Harlem Shake, popular in the United States. Then the video with this recording was posted online and became very popular. Now there are many memes for this video.
Harlem Shake, I would say that this is a new popular dance that was given life by Australian teenagers. Now the video with their participation is very popular on various internet resources!!
Harlem Shake is a dance, or rather, not just a dance, but a popular Internet meme that arose as a result of the rapid spread of a new video posted on February 2, 2013 on YouTube. It has become fashionable to repeat an idea, movements, and develop it.
The essence of the dance is that first one person dances, and then the whole mass of people joins. The videos are usually quite short, and the people in them are often slightly naked (but not necessarily). The beauty of dance, apparently, is that everyone can dance, jump and wriggle as best they can, there are no strict rules.
It took Internet folklore only a couple of months to find a replacement for the tired Gangnam Style dance. The name of the new phenomenon is the Harlem Shake, and at first glance this is a story worthy of nothing more than a couple of minutes of laughter, but it’s high time to take it for granted that nothing in modern world cannot do without a real or imagined second bottom. Look At Me delves into the history of the meme and tries to understand what it all means.
Text: Oleg Baranov
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On February 2, 2013, Japanese video blogger Filthy Frank posted the same video on YouTube. In it, four Australian students in strange multi-colored costumes dance to a short excerpt from the track Harlem Shake by Brooklyn producer Baauer, a client of the Mad Decent label and not the last person in modern trap-EDM. Well, so what, it would seem, is this. A lot of things: in two weeks only one original video watched more than 10 million times, which is the number of all existing parodies - it’s hard to imagine, but they say it’s something like 200 million. The parodies mentioned above - allowing the Harlem Shake to be seen as a meme - slightly transformed the original idea. The action in them takes place to the same music, but it is dictated by a clear script - at first, of all those present in the frame, only one person dances (and looks strange), and after the phrase “Do the Harlem shake” and the accompanying drop, they dance (and look strange) everyone starts, and these “everyone” become, as a rule, several times larger due to one editing gluing. |
The video has been watched more than 10 million times, parodies are hard to imagine, but they say something like 200 million
In the early eighties, a new dance style appeared in Harlem - the Harlem Shake, apparently invented by Al B, a city dweller typical of the time and place. In 2003, the album Thug Paradise 2.1 by Plastic Little was released, it included the song Miller Time, and in it the phrase “Do the Harlem shake”. The last one is the end real story about how one of the Plastic Little members had their first serious fight and, having won, danced the Harlem Shake. In 2012, Baauer used a sample from Miller Time in guess what track. And then there were videos. What does the last link - the YouTube meme - have to do with Al B's original dance? Of course, none.
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Baauer - Harlem Shake |
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The dancing in numerous viral videos is a simple illustration of what would happen if you asked the average computer user to do something wild to the music. Shake your head, wave your arms, pretend that you are fucking something inflatable or, more often, imaginary. The next question is how this is connected with the author of the music, with Baauer, that is. At first there was no connection - his track was simply played in the guys’ room with a video camera. Now Bauuer receives money for almost every view of every “Harlemshake”, and the track itself is in the top three on iTunes on both sides of the ocean. And his success (there is no other way to describe it) is, in general, a matter of chance. Viral marketing that started and works on its own. It works, and in a rather unusual way. So, a few days ago it turned out that Baauer and Azealia Banks worked together on a remix of Harlem Shake, over which Banks recited several of her own verses, and, frankly, the author of the composition did not like them. This did not stop the rapper and the result can already be seen online. It’s quite difficult to perceive this clip after watching hundreds of short humorous songs on the same topic, but here is an original soundtrack at least they are given a role that doesn’t rhyme with the word “funny.” As for the truly popular component of the Harlem Shake phenomenon, it is perhaps worth recognizing that it has very little in common with music in the usual sense. More - with a sphere modern technologies and with life in general. The distribution mechanics of the new dance meme are similar to those of jokes about the Chukchi. But the essence of this intersection is not only in the playful distortion of a successful form, but (and to a greater extent, perhaps) also in the formation of stereotypes about a specific area that correspond to the spirit of the times. Say the word “Harlem” ten years ago, or even a month ago, and you will encounter ideas about this area as the epicenter of the “black” danger, a place where you can kill for a sideways glance. In reality, this is, of course, an exaggeration, and the film New Jack City is, frankly speaking, not a CNN report. But what has been associated with Harlem in the last few days and will definitely not leave our minds for some time is something worse than Russian bears. Norwegian soldiers, American swimmers and many, many office workers - this is Harlem on the Internet. |
Let's briefly return to 2012: all of the above plus Nikita Dzhigurda are dancing the fashionable Gangnam Style dance. We won’t go into its details, let’s just say that it and the Harlem Shake are named a little differently (and in a sense glorify geographical objects), but they also seem to be two parts of one film or, better said, a game. In the first there is one character, high quality renditions of the original, imitators of all stripes and global triumph. In the second there are many heroes (and all of them are the main ones), a much more experimental approach (but respecting the genre), ease of reproduction. We dare to note that to dance Gangnam Style means to cross a rather serious psychological barrier; for Harlem Shake you only need good company(and not always).
To dance Gangnam Style means to cross a rather serious psychological barrier; the Harlem Shake only requires good company
The main advantage of HS over GS is its main seemingly disadvantage, namely poor production, transferred to another plane, the plane of carnal intoxication. Whether a phenomenon involving hundreds of millions of people can be called underground is a big question, but from the point of view of production technology, the Harlem Shake falls into this category - and is growing without leaving it. And his deliberate animality can be repulsive, but it’s still much easier to be charmed by it. Thinking for a long time about whether you like it all or not is like being six years old and wondering whether you should even ride down the hill on a cardboard.
From the context of funny videos, it’s worth returning to the context of music to make it clear why Harlem Shake is a story that is not just interesting, but also useful. The explosion in popularity of the Baauer track is most notable for the fact that, although it was not planned, but based on the totality of its details, it could be included in textbooks or at least into various kinds of inspiring books for modern musicians. The young and moderately talented guy followed the well-known path of gradual development and until February was forced to mainly entertain clubs for a thousand people. Now, in this sense, anything can happen, and Baauer's potential is certainly no lower than PSY's potential a year ago - adjusted, of course, for the genre. Only PSY and his team long and diligently produced their “meme of the millennium”, and a simple Brooklyn guy Baauer sat at home, composed a track a day just to get his teeth in, and look what happened.
Harlem shake(Harlem Shake) is a large-scale flash mob, whose participants recorded parodies of a viral video with a dance to the song of the same name.
Origin
The original video first appeared on the YouTube channel Gam3xpert January 30, 2013. The author indicated that the video belongs to Japanese blogger Filthy Frank, who runs a comedy channel called The DizastaMusic. In the original, he dances to the song Harlem Shake by the American DJ Baauer.
In the video, the blogger is dressed in a pink suit (this image of him is known on the Internet as), and his friends are wearing the costumes of a Super Sentai warrior, an alien and a DPRK politician.
On February 2, Filthy Frank posted a shortened version of the video, which went viral. In 5 years, the video received almost 60 million views.
The dance to “Harlem Shake” was very strange and absurd, thanks to which the video became a trend.
Some time later, but on the same day, 5 Australian teenagers, after watching the video, decided to record their own version. Many people liked this video, and a widespread production of parodies of it began.
Soon the flash mob could no longer be stopped; it reached Russia and, in general, all countries of the world. “Harlem” was danced in the army and various companies, it was shown in advertising and cartoons.
The flash mob was so popular that in February 2013 alone, about 4 thousand new parodies were uploaded to Youtube and Instagram every day.
Track Harlem Shake
The author of the musical composition Harlem Shake is the American musician Harry Rodriguez, better known as Baauer. In the fall of 2012, he posted the track on the SoundCloud website. Harry sold it on the Internet for $1.50, not expecting more, writes Wikipedia. But after the song “lit up” in a worldwide flash mob, everything changed.
Already on February 15, the single Harlem Shake reached number one on the iTunes chart in the US and became the second most popular in the UK and Australia, and on February 21 it took first place in the top 100 charts according to Billboard. As of March 6, 2013, Harlem Shake had sold 228,000 copies.
Meaning
The essence of the dance is that in the opening 14-15 seconds one person dances, while other people in the frame are busy with their own affairs. After which everything characters they also begin to dance, or make chaotic movements, taking unusual poses.
Of course, the flash mob was reflected in popular culture. He was parodied by celebrities and cartoon characters. In March, FOX presented a video called Homer Shake, stylized as the opening theme of The Simpsons, where the main characters from the series dance Harlem Shake by the family sofa.
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