Remember Gangnam Style, the crazy song by Psy that gained Internet fame for the dance that accompanied it? Well, it's no longer the only meme racing towards fame, a new one has surfaced, called the Harlem Shake.
The Harlem Shake, originally known as the albee, was a dance that originated in Harlem in 1981. The dance became mainstream in 2001 when G. Dep featured it in his music video "Let's Get It". In 2012, DJ Baauer remixed the song and released it as a free download, quickly after that, offices around the world performed a dance to the song; this dance followed a typical pattern.
Wikipedia defines the concept as:
The videos last 30-something seconds and feature an excerpt from the song "Harlem Shake" by electronic musician Baauer. Usually, a video begins with one person (often helmeted or masked) dancing to the song alone for 15 seconds, surrounded by other people not paying attention or unaware of the dancing individual. When the bass drops, the video switches to the entire crowd doing a crazy convulsive dance for the next 15 seconds. The dancing style should not be confused with the original Harlem Shake dance. Also, in the second half of the video, people often wear a minimum of clothes or crazy outfits or costumes while wielding strange props.
We've watched hundreds of companies around the world perform the Harlem Shake and we wanted to add our take on it. So, our beer 'o clock on Friday turned into us doing the Harlem Shake: Apologies about the quality, and missing a few things, we rocked it in a tiny 20 minute window with an iphone! In related news, this morning the Harlem Shake hit the number 1 spot on iTunes!
5 comments
Cath
February 18, 2013 at 1:06 pmThe funniest part of this video…is wondering where you got the helmet from, and the puppy, that just appears like puff the magic dragon. I laughed!
Christopher Mills
February 18, 2013 at 1:16 pmHahaha, Tupac, the best pug in the world! 🙂
We had such a blast doing it.
James M
February 18, 2013 at 1:17 pmThis was so much fun to film! :D/
Francois Botha
February 18, 2013 at 4:16 pmNice one. You should challenge the other digital agencies to give their versions.
Christopher Mills
February 20, 2013 at 12:31 am@James – I’m amped for the next meme!
@Francois – Absolutely, that would have been a fantastic idea. Our problem was that we had to get together, film, post produce and publish within an hour to get it out before everyone started ending work and leaving for the weekend. That being said, we have pushed at a few places to see if they’ll give it a bash and we’re seeing more and more local agencies publishing their videos. Cheers for popping in!