Harlem Shake? Harlem Shit
Tired of the YouTube craze? Ben Kennedy sure as hell is.
Many things in student culture make me feel like a boring old fart: dancing like you’re fighting off evil spirits with your pelvis, dressing up like an utter tit ‘just for the lolz’, and music that sounds like an ambulance and a buffalo making love in a tumble dryer.
Therefore, The Harlem Shake has led me to believe that I must be technically dead.
Plebs around the world, and a few too many in Nottingham, have jumped on the viral bandwagon infecting the world faster than a black plague with backing vocals from One Direction. The latest stats reveal that over 4,000 Harlem Shake spin-off videos are being uploaded to YouTube per day, generating a collective number of hits that would set most calculators on fire.
Knowing this, I feel incredibly alone when I say: it’s not funny. It’s not even entertaining. The best quality I can attribute to the phenomenon is that it has the ability to exist. It holds my attention for thirty seconds, which I could have instead spent doing more important things like scratching my arse or staring out of the window.
It makes me feel nothing, except incredibly boring. I’m 21, and as such, I suppose I should enjoy watching thoughtless, overeager drivel since it’s all over every form of media aimed at young people.
If students aren’t laughing gormlessly at a chimpanzee riding on a segway, they’re either tweeting about it or force feeding it to people at parties followed by a compilation video of ‘THAT CAT’S DOING PEOPLE STUFF. LOL!’.
Part of the reason why it’s so popular will undoubtedly be because of how easy it is to make your own version. However, it seems our resident TV station NUTS can’t even manage the simple task of keeping the camera still when not filming to maintain the continuity, or even ensuring that everybody is in shot in the official Notts Uni version:
Combined with half of the people on the bank in the background refusing to join in, Ali G dancing like an Egyptian, the strange girl waving a ‘Free Hugs’ sign around and a member of S.W.A.T who reportedly lost his rag after hitting the ground hard, we may now be officially the douchiest university in the country at the moment.
The comments on the video reflect the shoddy production and all-round cringiness displayed. Examples including: ‘How did we fail so hard?’, ‘This is just embarassing…’ and ‘Fucking terrible’.
But honestly, this article is less of a rant really, but more of a plea. A plea to hear from anybody that shares the same view as me that this viral craze is, in a word, wank. Am I really the only student who thinks this? Because if I am, I might as well just take up boules and start wearing tweed.
I do, however, enjoy this one (perhaps because the only tosser in this video is the one tossing the brick):
Do you agree? Are you loving or hating the Harlem Shake craze? Has the NUTS version made us look like crazy hipsters or inadequate losers? Be heard by commenting below!
All opinions expressed here are of the author alone, The Tab is merely a platform for debate.