The Harlem Shake craze has taken the University of Tampa as one of its many victims this past week with the men’s swim team’s video going viral and another recent video being created by Student Government. For those of you that haven’t heard of the Harlem Shake, type it into YouTube and brace yourself for some raunchy, rave-like dance parties. Videos have been made around the world by schools, work offices and sports teams in hopes of going viral. Most people don’t know where or how this video started. I know I sure didn’t. While the song is new, created by the up and coming DJ Baauer, the actual dance was birthed in the 80s. The dance was brought back by hip hop artist G.Dep in 2001 in his song “Let’s Get It.” As I watched G.Dep’s music video I saw a couple kids breaking down to a dance that in no way resembled what we’ve been seeing today. Definitely less hip thrusting and more break dancing was involved. The Harlem Shake we see today features a person dancing by themselves with a mask on while the surrounding party seems to be unaware of what’s going on as they sit or stand stationary. But once the bass drops, a huge chaotic dance party breaks out with lots of thrusting, lots of strange props and lots of viewers scratching their heads asking, “What the hell did I just watch?”
The most popular of these videos seems to be from university swim teams. The dance parties take place in apartments, locker rooms and even underwater in the pool, but the overall common theme of chiseled college athletes parading around in their Speedo’s might be one of the reasons for the rising view count of these videos. The Social Swimmer, a blog dedicated to swimming, created a poll to rank the top 10 Collegiate Swim team Harlem Shake videos. The University of Tampa’s men’s swim team made that list and is now in third place, so get on that website and vote for your fellow Spartans! The University of Georgia Athens leads the poll capturing 47 percent of the votes. Their video is shot all underwater which separates it from the other videos. However, the University of Tampa swim team features a live cat, so take that, UGA! When asked how the UT video differs from the others, current sophomore on the team and new media production major, Zach Sprague replied, “We are all wearing different, crazy outfits and the use of a live cat plus a stuffed giant teddy bear. All around I think the props we used make our video unique against the others.” I have to agree that swimmers hip thrusting at the teddy bear wearing a University of Tennessee t-shirt was a nice touch, especially since that was one of the schools entered in the contest on the Social Swimmer website. After having over 17,000 views on their video, Sprague explained what he thinks makes a video go viral, “You must make it somewhat short and very interesting. It is so easy for someone to skip and not watch your video, so you need to make it very appealing right off the bat to get the most views. The interesting factor can come in many ways, but the easiest way I think is making it funny and random. Promoting your video also helps a lot as well, using other social medias such as Twitter and Facebook.” It seems the UT swim team was successful in having that “interesting” factor after capturing nationwide viewership.
The men’s swim team wasn’t the only one to jump on the Harlem Shake bandwagon. On Sunday, Feb. 17, Student Government threw down a Harlem Shake dance party in Vaughn. I was lucky enough to witness it and the energy was awesome. It’s definitely nice to see some Spartan pride keeping up with the latest worldwide trends. Spartacus was even present in the video. Jessica McCarron, UT senior and Director of Public Relations, explained the reasoning behind making the video, “We thought it would be a fun thing to do and we’re hoping to encourage students to participate in Tampa Tuesday.” For those that do not know what Tampa Tuesday is, members of Student Government will be walking around campus every Tuesday and if you are seen sporting some Spartan pride, they will reward you with some new UT gear. With sweatshirts averaging $40 a pop at the bookstore, I’d say this is a great way to win some new swag as well as promote overall campus school spirit.
Though the 2013 Harlem Shake may have a different look than the dance popularized in the 80s, I continue to be a fan of it. These videos can add some comical relief to anyone’s stressful day. On top of that, I think it’s another great way YouTube unites our world. Because every time someone presses play on the Tampa Swim Team Harlem Shake video, a new person initially unaware of the University of Tampa will gain appreciation for all the “assets” our campus athletics has to offer. So until this viral video fad sizzles out, Godspeed my fellow Harlem Shakers and be “Con los terroristas.”
Vanessa Righeimer can be reached at vanessa.righeimer@spartans.ut.edu