Harlem Shake

When a bedroom producer named Baauer crafted a trap song using samples from a Philadelphia rap crew and a Puerto Rican artist, he never imagined it would soundtrack one of the internet's most explosive viral phenomena. The Harlem Shake meme, which erupted in January 2013, transformed a relatively obscure electronic track into a global cultural moment that redefined viral video creation and consumption.

The meme form was established in a video uploaded on January 30, 2013, by YouTube personality George Miller on his DizastaMusic channel. The video featured the character "Pink Guy" from The Filthy Frank Show in "Filthy Compilation #6 – Smell My Fingers," which included a section where several costumed people danced to Baauer's "Harlem Shake." This marked the first use of what would become the standardized Harlem Shake video format, starting a viral trend that would sweep across the internet within weeks.

The meme followed a distinctive formula: videos typically lasted about 30 seconds and featured an excerpt of Baauer's 2012 song. They began with one person, often helmeted or masked, dancing alone for 15 seconds while surrounded by other people not paying attention or seemingly unaware of the dancing individual. When the bass dropped at the 15-second mark, the video would cut to the entire group dancing wildly for the remainder, often wearing minimal clothing or outlandish costumes while wielding strange props.

According to YouTube Trends, users around the world were uploading over 4,000 Harlem Shake videos per day by February 10, 2013, when the trend was at its peak. The videos' success was attributed to their anticipation of the breakout moment, short length making them accessible to watch, and the formula's adaptability to any group or setting. From regular people in their homes to students in auditoriums to the Norwegian army in the snow, everyone created their own version.

The phenomenon achieved unprecedented viral velocity, hitting the 1 billion view mark on March 24, 2013, just 40 days after its first upload according to Visible Measures. From the day when the first video was uploaded until it hit 1 billion views, the videos were accumulating an average of more than 20 million views a day. This was half the time "Gangnam Style" took to hit 1 billion views and almost a sixth of the time it took "Call Me Maybe."

The Harlem Shake's impact extended beyond entertainment into the music industry's measurement systems. The unexpected success caused Billboard to bring forward its plans to incorporate data on YouTube views as one of three metrics used to calculate the influential Billboard Hot 100 chart, marking an important recognition that YouTube now plays a vital role in shaping cultural trends. As a consequence, Baauer's "Harlem Shake" debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on February 21, 2013, and became the 4th best song of 2013 on the year-end chart.

The meme received peak attention for only a few months, with many companies and startups uploading their own versions for promotional purposes. Ad Age later identified sixty advertising agencies exploiting the meme, calling it "played-out" after major corporations began releasing their own versions. Despite its brief lifespan, the Harlem Shake established important precedents for viral video culture and demonstrated the power of user-generated content to drive mainstream chart success.