Hello, Harlem Shake. Goodbye, Gangnam Style!

MANILA, Philippines – Thousands of people have uploaded 30-second video on YouTube since February began, showcasing a dance step called “Harlem Shake.” This “new” dance step threatens to dethrone Korean viral superstar Psy’s gallop-horse dance featured in his hit “Gangnam Style.”

According to pop culture site Fader, a “Harlem Shake” video usually goes like this: “a person, usually masked, thrusts along with the music while others mundanely go about their day-to-day. Then, when the *drop* drops, action explodes: people change costumes, remove their shirts and generally lose it.”

According to Kevin Allocca of YoutubeTrends.blogspot.com.au, the Youtube video that established the “Harlem Shake” form is a video posted by user TheSunnyCoastSkate.

In the video, 4 boys are hanging out in a bedroom while a 5th boy is dancing the “Harlem Shake” while wearing a while motorcycle helmet. After a few seconds, all 5 boys are dancing the “Harlem Shake.”

Two hours after, in the channel DizastaMusic, a guy called “Filthy Frank” posts another “Harlem Shake” video. Fader says that Frank is a 19-year-old communications student in New York.

When they asked him how that first video came to be, Filthy Frank told Fader: “I was in a room with a few people. One of my friends was just playing the song on the speakers and I asked what [it was], and it just happened to be ‘Harlem Shake.’ As soon as the drop of the song came, we just started going crazy. We thought, well, we could turn this in to something good.”

This video has received 11,263,897 views as of writing. Filthy Frank’s subscribers has grown to 127,032 from 12,000.

“Harlem Shake” is also the title of the song you hear people dancing to in the video, produced by DJ and music producer Baauer aka Harry Rodrigues. In an interview with The Daily Beast, Baauer said that the song is not an homage to the actual Harlem Shake dance step that was popularized in 1981 and originated from, well, Harlem. Instead, he used a sample from Philadelphia rapper Plastic Little’s “Miller Time.”

“A friend had shown me that track where he says, then do the Harlem shake, and it just got stuck in my head for a while, so I used it,” he said.

From being somewhat unknown with “millions of failed projects,” Baauer is now playing to sold out shows in New York, with people wearing costumes in attendance, ready to dance to “Harlem Shake.”

Fader reports that more than 12,000 “Harlem Shake” video have been uploaded on YouTube, collectively getting more than 44 million views. Here are some of them:

1. Ryan Seacrest with Kendall and Kylie Jenner

2. Boys of West Point

3. Rapper T Pain

4. At Late Night with Jimmy Fallon

5. Underwater with the UGA Men’s Swim and Dive team

6. De La Salle University, Philippines

– Rappler.com