Looking for the latest example of the Internet turning the zeitgeist inside out?
Take fledgling Brooklyn electronic artist Baauer, who opened for an act named Com Truise (get it?) at 1015 Folsom in San Francisco last year in front of a few hundred dedicated dance music fans.
Just a few months later, a 30-second version of Baauer's song "Harlem Shake," posted by 22-year-old Hank Rao of San Rafael and featuring his two octogenarian grandmothers, has become the latest Internet sensations, garnering more than 1.3 million hits on YouTube. The song itself has spurred a website, The Harlem Shakeup, to gather the slew of homemade videos based around it.
"It just kind of blew up," Rao told the Marin Independent Journal. "It's on a bunch of different news sites, It was on the 'Today' show yesterday morning. It's trending on the front page of YouTube. It was on CNN."
"It was hilarious, and I thought I might as well make my own since my grandparents are a little bit crazy and love dancing," he continued. "They're both in their 80s, but they have their energy still. I showed them one of the videos and they were pretty excited to do it themselves."
