By Matthew Laurrie
Features Editor
Millions of YouTube viewers have spent countless hours watching thirty-second videos of the latest viral sensation. The “Harlem Shake” has students at Bona’s and individuals around the world abuzz with rhythm and moves.
People may be familiar with the traditional move-and-sway Harlem Shake, but an updated craze is sweeping the Web. Urban Dictionary defines the latest Internet obsession as a short video that usually begins with one person dancing without other members in the video noticing. About halfway through the clip, everyone in the room dances and shakes uncontrollably.
The Harlem Shake has officially hit Bona’s.
Ely Lester, a freshman undecided business major, said he and five of his floor mates on 2nd Falconio Hall spontaneously decided to make a Harlem Shake video one day last week. The thirty-seven second clip, titled “Harlem Shake v69 (SBU Edition)” on YouTube, has garnered more than 2,700 views as of Thursday afternoon.
“My friend actually Skyped me at two in the morning and was like, ‘Ely, check out this video,’” Lester said. “So I watched it and showed everybody in my dorm, and said ‘We’ve got to do this.’”
Ryan Hayes, a freshman history major, was part of Lester’s production and said he got a great deal of enjoyment out of making and promoting the video.
“It was just so funny and crazy, and something cool for us to do, especially in our dorm,” Hayes said. “It was so much fun to make; I love making people laugh. It was a crazy idea. Why not?”
Lester and Hayes said they reached out to the Communications Department with the idea of organizing a Bona-wide Harlem Shake at a men’s basketball game.
“I thought a great idea would be to do the Harlem Shake during the game,” Lester said.
The Communications Department loved the idea, according to Lester, and the event took place at last’s week’s game against La Salle in the Reilly Center. The video, which showcased the passion and wildness of the WolfPack, will be sent to the Naismith Student Section of the Year committee for consideration.
Tori Lanzillo sat in her video production class last week and watched from afar as students tuned in to her rendition of the Harlem Shake, unaware one of the stars of the video was in their midst. Lanzillo, a sophomore theater and journalism and mass communication major, said she has been fairly obsessed with watching the videos this past week.
“I found compilation videos and probably spent hours watching the Harlem Shake,” she said. “People keep watching it, and I keep watching it!”
Lanzillo said she and three of her friends made a Harlem Shake video in the Loft located in Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts. The twenty-nine second video has gathered more than 250 hits as of Thursday afternoon, and can be found on YouTube under the title “Quirky College – Harlem Shake.”
However, not everyone is grooving to the beat of the Harlem Shake. Daquashia Walker, a senior journalism and mass communication major, lives in Harlem, N.Y. and said the remix of the original dance inadvertently misrepresents people who live in Harlem.
“I find it offensive because people who participate in the videos are making a mockery of what originated in Harlem and what’s important to the people that live there,” she said. “If you compare the original Harlem Shake to the remix, it’s completely different.”
Regardless of one’s personal beliefs about the recent viral remix, Bonnies certainly aren’t holding back when it comes to shaking what their mamas gave them.
