Are you ready to do the ‘Harlem Shake?’
February 16, 2013
The latest internet phenomenon will make its way to campus Monday, February 18, as a “Harlem Shake” Facebook group event begins to increase in the number of people joining.
Georgia Southern University’s rendition of the Harlem Shake will take place on Monday at 11 a.m. The organizers are considering the Russell Union, Sweetheart Circle or Hanner Fieldhouse as locations.
The Harlem Shake is a hyper-recent web sensation where groups of people wear outrageous costumes and explode into dancing. The shake starts off with one person, usually wearing a mask while dancing alone for the first 15 seconds, then the bass drops and the lone dancer is joined by large amounts of other dancers. This popular YouTube trend is set to electronic artist Baauer’s track “Harlem Shake.”
“I thought maybe we’d get 200 people tops. I had no clue it was going to get this big, we’re almost at 800 people going and its only Friday,” Patrick Teate, organizer of GSU’s Harlem Shake, Student Government Association member and senior geography major at GSU, said.
According to YouTube Trends blog, over the last four days more than 4,000 “Harlem Shake” videos have been uploaded with more than 40 million views collectively.
“I think we can get 1,500 people out, the sky is the limit. If other universities can get that many out I don’t see a reason why we can’t as well,” Teate said.
Marla Rooker, videographer of GSU’s “Harlem Shake” and senior multimedia communications major at GSU, will be one of the many people filming the GSU version of the “Harlem Shake.”
“We’re going to do a shot from like the other videos, but we also are trying to get a shot from inside the crowd, so people can get a feel for how crazy it is,” Rooker said.
The inception of the dance is credited to YouTube blogger “Filthy Frank” from a video uploaded only two weeks ago.
Rooker Said, “Who knows what’s going to happen? There could be 1,000 people there, all I know is that it’s going to be a ton of fun no matter what.”