Subject: The Man Behind the Harlem Shake Wed Feb 20, 2013 5:59 am
Meet Baauer, the Man Behind the Harlem Shake
Just days after a cringe-worthy Super Bowl commercial for Wonderful Pistachios sounded the death knell for Psy’s cross-cultural viral smash, a new Internet meme has usurped that once-ubiquitous horse-gallop dance.
It’s called the “Harlem Shake.”
For the uninitiated, it consists of users uploading videos to YouTube that last about thirty seconds in length and feature the opening of electronic music producer Baauer’s song “Harlem Shake.” The videos begin with the song’s sample of a man giving a shrieking siren call of “Con los terroristas!”—Columbian Spanish for “with the terrorists”—followed by one person, usually in a ridiculous mask or helmet, dancing to the song alone as the beat builds. He or she is surrounded by others who are stationary, blissfully unaware of the dancer. When the directive, Then do the Harlem shake is uttered about 15 seconds in, the bass drops and the video metastasizes into pure chaos—the entire coterie engaging in paroxysms of dance for the next 15 seconds in outrageous outfits, and wielding bizarre props.
The first video was uploaded to YouTube by amateur comedian Filthy Frank on February 2. As of February 15, over 40,000 “Harlem Shake” videos have been uploaded to YouTube, totaling over 175 million views.
