By now you’ve definitely heard about an online meme called the Harlem Shake. It began as a clip by offbeat video blogger Filthy Frank that throughout early February spawned thousands of copycats (or rather “tribute videos”) with tens of millions of aggregate views. They all follow a similar template: In a room full of distracted people that’s captured in a static shot (frequently a workplace of some sort), a lone individual, often in a mask, begins dancing to “Harlem Shake,” a 2012 single by Brooklyn beat maker Baauer, previously barely known outside his corner of the EDM world. Then when the song’s bass drop hits (at the same time as a sample of someone saying, “Then do the Harlem Shake”) there’s a jump cut to the same scene, except with everyone in the room suddenly dancing as wildly and unapologetically goofily as they can.
This whole situation is hardly fair, and as a content producer myself I’m familiar with the frustrating feeling of seeing something you’ve created being posted and reposted online without so much as a credit. And short of a worldwide shift in consciousness, that kind of thing is only going to get more prevalent. Baauer is one face of the future, with his newfound global fame and a number one single (thanks to a fortuitously timed reformulation of Billboard‘s chart rankings to factor in YouTube plays). The Harlem residents bemusedly shaking their heads at what all these people on the Internet are calling the Harlem Shake are another.
