The February Viral: HARLEM SHAKE

The Favorite Song of 2012 by Baauer “Harlem Shake” becomes the viral hit of 2013. Uploaded on February 2, the video reached an upload rate of 4,000 per day on February 10. On February 11 there were 12,000 uploads of the video with 44 million views. February 15 saw 40,000 uploads of the video with a total of 175 million views.

The original Harlem Shake video by The Sunny Coast Skate (a group of five teenagers  from Queensland Australia) is rated  the No.1 on iTunes chart. It is the No.1 on the Hot 100 Chart as a result of its You Tube streaming data, which now forms a criterion for calculating the singles chart.

The Birmingham Mets do the Harlem Shake

The original video, a 31 seconds video featuring an excerpt from the song “Harlem Shake”, begins with a person with a helmet on his head dancing on the song, he dances alone for the first 15 seconds of the video. His friends dressed in crazy outfits then join in and the dance together for the rest of the 16 seconds. Individuals and groups soon started uploading their own versions of the video in large numbers.

1. The video is very short in length (31 seconds) and thus makes it easily accessible to watch.
2. Also perhaps the crazy humor accounts for more and more views.

In competition to Gangnam Style??

Well, not really. Some of the viewers began comparing the video with Gangnam Style (the video that went viral a very short while ago) but due to the huge number of different versions coming up every now and then, the Forbes magazine called it an Internet meme.

After a television broadcast of their version of Harlem Shake by Today television, the magazine, The Atlantic declared the “meme murdered”

The Web Best Versions of the video include:

1. UGA Men’s Swim and Dive “Harlem Shake”
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v;=QkNrSpqUr-E
2. Norwegian Army Squad’s “Harlem Shake”
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v;=4hpEnLtqUDg
3. Matt and Kim’s “Harlem Shake”
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v;=DABphlXEyW8
4. Peanuts “Harlem Shake”
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v;=EZC1siHMvYE
5. The casts of Happy Endings “Harlem Shake”
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v;=QipQFSgQ-Mg
6. Star Wars “Harlem Shake”
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v;=q9gocBKtIKA