The Harlem Shake is quite possibly the stupidest thing the Internet has ever forced upon me. It is so, so stupid. “Oh, look at me. I’m an idiot with a helmet on. Hey look, now I’m surrounded by idiots.” That is my impression of the Harlem Shake.
Actually no, that is my impression of whatever the hell the idiots in all those videos are doing, because as Emma Carmichael at Deadspin pointed out, it is not the Harlem Shake. “The Harlem Shake” is a dance that has been around for decades, and has nothing to do with the present iteration. They just took the name and slapped it on a different, crappier dance. It would be like me filming myself eating spaghetti while wearing a dinosaur costume and calling it The Charleston. Everything about it is stupid and I hate it.
BUT.
The cast of Happy Endings just made a Harlem Shake video, and after watching it I am willing to temporarily put aside my intense dislike of the whole thing for two reasons: 1) It starts with Elisha Cuthbert doing a very goofy and terrific dance, and 2) Damon Wayans, Jr. brought back Sinbrad, his character’s “AWWWWWWWWWWW SNAP” loving ventriloquist dummy. Please make a note: The degree of difficulty on this was very high, and they barely skated by even with both of those factors in their favor. This is not an excuse for you and your friends to continue doing the Harlem Shake. Please stop.
Thank you for your time.
(Via Buzzfeed)
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Can’t agree more with this whole thing.
Reappearance of the hairmet won me over, though.
Stupider than planking? I believe so.
Has Cuthbert always been this delightful? It’s rare for such an attractive person to develop an actual personality, let alone a funny one.
I wish her opening dance was isolated in some sort of looped moving image so that I could watch it repeatedly with no effort.
That Esquire channel should rescue Happy Endings and Community from cancellation. That’s how you launch a new cable channel. I’d also add Parks & Rec to that list, but I don’t know if NBC is stupid enough to cancel it. Of course I wouldn’t put anything past them.
I liked this version better: [youtu.be]
We are living in a strange world when the cast of a yet to be aired Nickelodeon show and the cast of a soon to be canceled ABC show both make separate videos of this sort. So dumb.
Dumb or not, I’ve probably watched this 30 times. Don’t even care.
[First half of the article]
Harlem Shake videos are stupid.
[Second half]
BUT HAPPY ENDINGS DID IT SO I CAN LIKE IT.
Never have I wanted Elisha Cuthbert to marry me more than now. Can she be passing Glasses Britta? Or even Goth Britta?
Hip Hop Santa appearance!!!
Stupid trends are stupid, til people I like do them.
Nope. They’re still dumb as shit. But the inclusion of Elisha Cuthbert and a beloved ventriloquist doll make them slightly more tolerable.
At least with this ‘meme’ there’s a fair amount of variety in the execution. With Gangnam Style you can only go in any one direction with a parody. Here’s the Star Trek Gangnam, or the LOTR Gangnam. At least with Harlem Shake you can have setup and the punchline can be wildly varied. This was one of the better ones. The Daily Show’s Moment of Zen the other night was a great one too. Plus…it’ll be gone next week.
The Harlem Shake was popular in like, 6th grade. Like a million years ago. Why is it back? Because white people just discovered it? It’s not even the real Harlem Shake. I don’t understand.
My favorite meme of all is hating memes. It always makes me the coolest guy in the room. It’s the cousin to the “hipster hate” a thing I just made up.
-good day.
I agree that the whole fad is stupid, but unfortunately my office is doing one today and being “the fun guy” I’m expected to take part in it.
Part of me just wants to wear my “Festivus” Holiday sweater (a black sweatshirt with “Festivus” in cheap ironed-on letters.) and stand there the entire time fuming in protest.
Elisha Cuthbert. God I love that little psycho.
The people of Harlem should sue the shit out of the asshole who dared to call this fad the “Harlem shuffle.” More like the honkey shuffle, amirite?
THE HAIRMET!
The song that plays in all the videos is called “Harlem Shake” and whenever people bring up that the dance isn’t the actual Harlem Shake I just feel like I’m losing my mind, because THE SONG IN THE VIDEOS IS CALLED “HARLEM SHAKE.” What else should they call it?
/no, you get off the lawn.
So if I wrote a metal song called “The Waltz” and you danced to it would you be doing the waltz?
Logical fallacy alert! Logical fallacy alert!
This Harlem Shake thing is stupid as all hell, but damn if I didn’t enjoy this video.
Eliza Coupe, in a skirt, on a table. I mean….