The Best Harlem Shake Videos We Could Find

By Liam Lally 19th February 2013 Blog & 4 more

Image Credit – http://www.flickr.com/photos/14964382@N08/8477281567/

Move over Gangnam Style, there is a new kid on the block (remember them!).

In the last 17 days a new Internet Meme has been created by five teenagers in Queensland, Australia called The Harlem Shake.

The Harlem Shake was a song released by Baauer in May 22nd, 2012, and featured in a skit by a vlogger named Filthy Frank. This was then replicated by The Sunny Coast Skate chaps from Oz.

The basic premise appears to be:

One person dances to the first 15 seconds of the song (usually wearing a helmet or mask – but not always).
Everyone else in shot goes about their days work or business.
At about 15 seconds the bass drops and then….
Crowd goes mad, mad props, loss of clothes, crazy outfits and awesome dance moves ensue.

There have been over 40,000 Harlem Shake videos uploaded to YouTube already (within 17 days!), and views of these videos has already surpassed over 200 MILLION views – this is massively more than Gangnam Style picked up when it was first released.

What is interesting is that it is the first real “crowd sourced” video to significantly drive sales of a song, with the Harlem Shake reaching #1 in the US iTunes charts and #2 in the UK & Australian iTunes Charts.

We hope you enjoy the collection we found!

The first video is the original by Filthy Frank

The second video is by The Sunny Coast Skate who were the first to create this internet meme.

Then the US Marines, Navy & Airforce all got in on the craze!

US Airforce

US Navy

The US Marines

Another set of soldiers – Norwegian??

And even our own British Army

The Harlem Shake then spread to offices all across the world…

The Office of Break.com

KISS FM

The Fixed Fabric Corporation (We think!)

IGN Offices

And Riot Games

Not to be out done, news rooms from around the world got involved..

including KSLA News

A news room from Kosovo

And various Fox News shows..

This spread to sports teams and competitions
UGA Dive Team

Epic Gym

and the Georgia American Football Team

The Florida Gators

Professional MMA fighters

Our very own Lincoln Rugby Union

Even the “conservative” sport of snooker has got in on the act!

And then? Well just about everyone wanted to do their version of the Harlem Shake!!

From Universities..

Wilfrid Laurier University

Clemson University

Manchester University

London Ravensbourne

Birmingham University

And our very own Bishop Grosseteste University

From Fire Departments

To Grandmas

Cool parents

Through to anyone with a video camera and an imagination!

Lovely ladies

In the Snow

Super Singhs shop (what a name and logo – love it)

Pool parties

and just simply workshops

Asian dance crews

and even puppies!

And how you can tell something is going REALLY viral is when gaming versions start to appear including

Super Mario

and the League of Legends

And finally – one video that shows the power of this type of viral video and how far reaching it can become is the “around the world Harlem Shake”

What we found interesting, and what pricked our interest to put this blog post together was this blog post by Mark Suster – discussing how broadcast trends are changing and how they will change even further. If you get the chance please have a read.

Well with only 17 days since this launched and another 800 million PLUS views to go before it catches Gangnam Style we are sure we will be revisiting this topic when more people get more creative with their ideas!.

Happy shaking.

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