And have fun than to be so afraid of looking foolish that you never have any. No one dances badly in public in fuzzy ears because they think it will make them look really cool. We expected to be mocked mercilessly, it's what the Internet does best. Having fun matters, what strangers will think does not.

Foolish?

By anon on Sat, 02/23/2013 - 2:35pm.

I'd say "racist" would be a more likely worry.

Boston Shake is growing on me

By anon on Sat, 02/23/2013 - 4:05pm.

OK, I'm pretty cynical and this meme is lame and completely misnamed.

Shouldn't everyone doing it on YouTube at least attempt to do the actual dance?

However, after watching this video it looks like these folks are having a lot of harmless fun, so I say more power to them.

Watched it a couple times and the antics of variouss participants were pretty amusing.

Yes, adults have more productive things to do, but life is short and goofing off has its place and own rewards.

And I wouldn't worry about this lil video making Boston look like Dink City.

First, do you think anyone is clamoring about how cool another city is for posting an epic Shake video? Doubtful.

Second, the real dinks in Boston have managed to make us look like Dink City long before these guys came along.

Finally, I will agree that a more iconic Boston location would have added to the appeal of the video.
next time break one out on the Swan Boats and we'll all be impressed.

Keep having fun. Haters are gonna hate.

Tito Jackson shakes things up

By adamg on Fri, 02/22/2013 - 3:15pm.

On WGBH today.

Very weak Harlem shake

By Pete Nice on Fri, 02/22/2013 - 3:31pm.

In my opinion anyway

I assume this was a grade

By NotWhitey on Fri, 02/22/2013 - 3:53pm.

I assume this was a grade school class project. What kind of nimrods organized this wet squib? Is there someone we can blame for making Boston look like Dink City?

Harlem Shake, wasn't that a

By anon on Fri, 02/22/2013 - 4:02pm.

Harlem Shake, wasn't that a Rolling Stones song from the 80s? Huh, what's that you say? Oh yeah right, shuffle. Anyhow, around noon I was walking past the pregnant building and past by a girl wearing a spiderman mask wondering what was up with that completely forgetting what was mentioned yesterday on UHub.

Yeah, I loved webslinging on

By Petralia Parker on Fri, 02/22/2013 - 4:38pm.

Yeah, I loved webslinging on the concrete!

Asylum Shake

By swirlygrrl at work on Fri, 02/22/2013 - 4:20pm.

Artisan's Asylum in Somerville: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTu3qImfWPw&feature...

They also have a "Welding Bay Edition". No flashdance getups, though.

Played out

By rsybuchanan on Fri, 02/22/2013 - 4:23pm.

NPR had a bit on it last night. That's usually the death knell for these sorts of fads.

What is the point of this?

By anon on Fri, 02/22/2013 - 5:52pm.

Don't people have anything to do?

What is the point of your comment?

By SwirlyGrrl on Fri, 02/22/2013 - 7:48pm.

Isn't there something more important you should be doing?

Humans make art. Not all of it is epic. Deal with it.

Clearly when you take the shake out of Harlem

By anon on Sat, 02/23/2013 - 1:57am.

You also take the Harlem out of the shake.
The fish head guy was worth a second look though.

A few reasons this was weak

By Kaz on Sat, 02/23/2013 - 8:49am.

1) PO Square isn't exceptionally iconic when you think of Boston. There are 10 other places I could think of that would have provided a better back drop: City Hall, State House, Boston Garden, Boston Common (any landmark within and/or the Public Garden), the Green Monster (you might have even gotten access inside as well as Wally or some Sox gear if you asked permission this time of year...and probably the Sox PR machine as well), Old State House, Faneuil Hall/Sam Adams statue, any T station with big (T) signs at ground level, the Bull & Finch Pub entrance, or Fort Independence where you could have included a low plane landing at Logan in the second half of the video for a new twist.

2) Some, if not all, of the actors for the second half need to be present in the first half doing mundane things. This way people spend the first half seeing random people and knowing to try and pick a few of them out in the second half to see what they transformed into in the insanity. It's half the fun of the meme.

3) The second half should be insanity. The people, when they all did arrive on screen, were far too regimented in their positions as a block of people in front of the fountain. They were in rows and all just sorta shuffling in place. Watch some of the fun ones and you'll see how people in the bigger ones are all spread out across an entire office space or facing each other in weird ways. There should be nothing ordered about the second half...and yet that's what this was...very orderly.

Oh well. It was a great attempt, but didn't quite make the grade.

How did this start?

By Grouper on Sat, 02/23/2013 - 7:56pm.

I know that the "Harlem Shake" is a dance move (which can be cool, done properly) but this song is baauer/Diplo and also rapped over by Tate Tucker, right? How has it become some college d-bag freak fest?

Fleeting trend

By anon on Sat, 02/23/2013 - 9:20pm.

This is another one of those momentary trends for people who have an enormous amount of time on their hands and nothing constructive to do with it. Remember "planking" from a while back? I thought not. Social media, for whatever good it may have, has also spawned a lot of these meaningless activities. It comes with the territory I suppose.

Enormous amounts of time?

By adamg on Sat, 02/23/2013 - 10:20pm.

How much time do you think it took to organize and run this?

So, Boston Shake happened

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