YouTube is known to give birth to crazy viral trends, but the latest string of “Harlem Shake” videos has the actual city of Harlem feeling “disrespected.”
If you’re not much of a YouTube fan, you’re probably thinking: “Why would Harlem be upset about a bunch of videos of people doing the Harlem shake?”
The problem is, while the videos have been deemed as “Harlem Shake” videos nobody is actually doing the Harlem shake. Instead they just go on a wild frenzy of dry humping the air, dry humping friends, and in one of the virals even dry humping while pouring a gallon of milk over their head.
We aren’t really sure why someone felt as if these videos should be called “Harlem Shake” videos, but they have become extremely popular and have successfully pissed off the famous Manhattan neighborhood.
DJ ?uestlove posted the video by Schlepp Films that finally asked the question we had been wondering for quite a while – how does Harlem feel about the hundreds of videos of people doing completely random actions and uncoordinated dance moves and calling it the Harlem shake?
“It’s disrespectful,” said one man in the video who looked watched the YouTube hit with disgust.
Another woman was furious and said “Harlem is not like that. Do you see people around here doing that crap?”
A dancer who watched the viral sensation felt as if the clips weren’t just disrespecting his city, but they were even disrespecting dance as a whole.
“They’re basically taking what we do and – like all dancers and making a joke of it,” he said with a disappointed look on his face.
Perhaps the crazy teenagers and young adults that are often the ones in the videos didn’t realize that the city of Harlem takes the dance very seriously.
Let’s be honest, this isn’t the soulja boy dance we’re talking about – this dance is a bit of a cultural landmark for the city and they don’t see any humor in people making a joke of it.
“I feel like this is really a violation towards Harlem..,” another onlooker said.
The next man explained that everyone in Harlem takes the dance very seriously and explains “it’s not no dance, it’s really a lifestyle.”
Quite honestly, I’m not sure how the videos became popular in the first place. I wasn’t aware that we had moved on from the cute cat video phase and somehow transitioned into wasting dairy products while humping the air.
I can think of quite a few reasons the “Harlem Shake” videos need to come to a stop, but the fact that it’s being viewed as disrespectful by the city that originated the real dance in the first place should be enough to make people think twice about posting their own video.
While the people of Harlem aren’t reaping any benefits from the videos, Baauer sure is.
The Billboards have recently added YouTube views as a factor when making their charts of the top hits and that means the viral sensation has sent Baauer’s “Harlem Shake” to the top of the Hot 100 chart on Wednesday.
Of course this only fuels the complaints about adding YouTube to the equation in the first place. While the song is used in all of the wanna-be funny videos, there honestly aren’t many people actually listening to the song itself.
All that aside, it still gets to sit pretty at number 1, stealing the spot from Macklemore & Ryan Lewis who recently released “Thrift Shop.”
There are more than twice as many people listening to the jingle about “popping tags” with only “20 dollars in my pocket” – which is a fact you have to admit no matter how dumb you might think the song is.
Either way musicians aren’t happy with the change and feel as if the new system will only favor cross over artists rather than some of the genre specific musicians who usually dominate the top spots.
Even singer Josh Groban responded to the decision to add YouTube views as a Billboard factor with a simple “smh,” which means “shaking my head.”
YouTube simply doesn’t give too great of an estimate about what music is really popular at the time, but if the Billboard really feels like they are missing out on some vital information they should have simply made a separate YouTube chart and left the old equation alone.
