Dear Mr Baauer,
Undoubtedly you are a talented music producer and no doubt you deserve your recent recognition that ‘The Harlem Shake’ gave you. You have a skill that makes a track catchy and I’m in no way judging you as a musician, however I’m not grateful at all for the viral ‘phenomenon’ that ensued when you released The Harlem Shake.
The number of videos my friends, family and social media have shoved under my nose of an idiot essentially gyrating with thin air until everyone else deems it fit to join in and go crazy, is astounding.
I’m talking videos of kids in a schoolroom continuously hitting themselves over the head with books to the track and Russian military squads stripping to their tiny undies in a tiny room and doing oddly erotic dance moves.
Basically this Harlem Shake is an unoriginal, stupid and pointless excuse for people to be dumb when they should be doing something constructive. Random groups of people have come out and announced their disdain for the virals because they are nothing like the actual Harlem Shake, which requires rhythm, coordination and skill.
Rapper Ice-T recently spoke out about it, saying it’s “Ridiculously inaccurate” and that it’s “Like a flashmob of stupidity”. I’m not a stickler for the authenticity, I don’t even care that the ‘original’ Harlem Shake is being misrepresented, I just don’t like that people have jumped on the bandwagon of stupidity. Take the group who defiled a war memorial by ‘dancing’ all over it, but never fear…they got arrested.
The issue now is that the Harlem Shake viral sensation has ruined the ‘Harlem Shake’ song along with the actual Harlem Shake dance from Harlem. So this time virals killed two birds with one stone.
So thank you for bringing this silly craze to the public.
