Doing the Harlem Shake - The Pinnacle of Human Development?

You probably already have the image in your head. A group of people going about their ordinary fill a room . A shell of the solitary soul begins to dance , swaying and undulating , and is likely to hit a hip toss for good measure . This is done for 15 seconds in the scattered introduction in May 2012 Baauer single " Harlem Shake ' , while his impromptu audience is deaf . Halfway through the video, a male voice exclaims "Do the Harlem Shake ' , low and falling fast video clippings in the same scene , but everyone in the camera is in a suit and the chaotic dance other available. 15 seconds and experience is complete.

Easily reproducible size and short duration of these videos led to the rampant popularity as an Internet phenomenon . Since the first was imported on YouTube February 2, 2013 has seen more than 40,000 fakes created worldwide . This is a strange little joke , and no surprise people find it funny , but perhaps in small doses.

Memes are probably one of the most interesting developments to come out of the twisted mass that is the Internet, and the Harlem shake . They essentially turn jokes , a common language by which people around the world can communicate mood to another. An image, a video or go becomes popular, and encourages users to modify or expand on it while staying true to the original content . A photo Angelina Jolie showing her leg in 2012 's was published in famous images , for example. The Lord of the Rings quote : "You do not just walk into Mordor " is largely edited and published with the photo of the person who comes to criticizing people underestimate the difficulty of his ideas.

Glad Harlem shake is a new step in social and creative of the nature of Internet adoption . At this point , hundreds of thousands of people participated in the creation of these videos. All operate under a common understanding of how the content should slot together, but there is room for creative expansion on the subject. Odd curtains or adjustments twists and subversions of weird format and the introduction of memes or jokes that already exist in the collective culture of the Internet pre - existing .

It is a strange system , and has been a long time. People have enjoyed the Internet for critical applications. Modern commerce has revolutionized the underfunded political groups have expanded their reach and visibility of university research is more accessible than ever before. But the trend line , which gives an interesting idea of how these technologies are applied to content creation at the individual level .