0:00 In February 2013, at the absolute peak of the craze, over four thousand Harlem Shake videos were being uploaded to YouTube every single day.0:10 Every DAY.0:11 Wow.0:11 You know, last week when we were talking about Storm Area 51, we talked about a meme escaping the screen and becoming a real-world plan.0:21 But this… this wasn’t a plan, it was an action, happening simultaneously, everywhere at once.0:28 Exactly.0:28 It was the internet joke made flesh, but on a global, decentralized scale.0:34 And the part that really gets me is that the meme itself has almost nothing to do with the actual Harlem Shake.0:42 Oh, not at all.0:43 The original dance goes back to the 1980s, in Harlem.0:47 It's a specific set of movements, a real cultural artifact.0:51 The meme is… well, it’s something else entirely.0:55 It’s just flailing.0:56 It's chaotic, anonymous flailing.0:59 And that’s the key, right?1:01 The structure of the meme is pure genius.1:04 It’s a formula.1:05 One person, usually in a helmet or mask, dances alone for fifteen seconds to the build-up of the song "Harlem Shake" by Baauer.1:14 Right, and everyone else in the room is just ignoring them, going about their business.1:21 It creates this incredible tension.1:23 You’re just waiting for it.1:25 And then the bass drops, the scene cuts, and it’s absolute pandemonium.1:30 Everyone is in costume, thrashing around.1:33 The barrier to entry was basically zero.1:36 You didn’t need talent, you didn't need rhythm.1:40 You just needed thirty seconds and a willingness to look ridiculous.1:45 And a camera.1:46 Which, by 2013, everyone had in their pocket.1:49 That’s the piece that maybe wasn’t there for earlier viral moments.1:54 It was the perfect storm of a simple template and ubiquitous technology.1:59 So why then?2:00 Why did THIS specific, simple, kind of dumb template conquer the world for a month?2:06 I think it was a form of, uh, collective catharsis.2:10 Think about the setting for so many of these videos.2:14 It’s the office.2:15 The lecture hall.2:16 The fire station.2:18 Places with rules and hierarchies and unspoken social contracts.2:22 Mm-hm.2:23 The mundane.2:24 Exactly.2:24 And for thirty seconds, the meme gives everyone permission to just… break.2:30 To suspend all of that.2:31 It’s a temporary autonomous zone, but for, like, corporate middle-management.2:37 It’s a micro-rebellion that your boss can even participate in.2:42 A sanctioned micro-rebellion!2:44 I love that.2:45 It’s not subversive enough to get you fired, but it’s just enough to let off some steam.2:51 It's this shared, absurd secret.2:54 For fifteen seconds we pretend this isn't happening, and for the next fifteen, we embrace total joyful chaos together.3:02 And then it’s over.3:04 You put the horse mask away and go back to your spreadsheets.3:08 The return to normalcy is part of the joke.3:11 It feels like the digital equivalent of a flash mob, but even more accessible.3:17 A flash mob requires you to physically be in the same place at the same time.3:23 Right.3:23 This was asynchronous.3:25 The Norwegian Army could do their version, and then a group of students in Perth could do theirs the next day, and they’re both part of the same global event.3:37 They’re connected by the format, not by geography or time.3:41 It’s a pattern we’ve seen since, but maybe never with this much… innocent energy.3:47 That’s the word.3:48 There was an innocence to it.3:50 It was pre-weaponized virality.3:52 It wasn’t selling anything, it wasn’t for a political cause.3:57 The point of the Harlem Shake was just… doing the Harlem Shake.4:01 Which is also why it burned out so fast.4:04 It was so universal and so easy to replicate that it reached saturation in, what, five or six weeks?4:12 It was everywhere, and then it was just… gone.4:15 A perfect, compressed cycle of internet culture.4:19 It was this weirdly pure moment of participatory culture.4:23 It wasn’t about watching something, it was about adding your own brick to the wall.4:29 Yeah.4:29 It was one of the last big, global memes that felt like it was for everyone, and for nothing other than the joy of the thing itself.4:39 I wonder if we'll ever see something quite like that again.
