There hasn't been a dance craze quite like it since.
If you are older than 20, you probably remember the jerk craze that came about almost a decade ago. As a song, "you're a jerk" was pretty mediocre ("Party Like a Rockstar" was a much better song at that time) and if you break it down, you're just skipping in place. I'd argue that "you're a jerk" was riding the coattails of previous efforts at making well-known song-dances from the likes of Soulja boy and their penetration into popular culture. Jerking is a unique dance because it became viral with no real backing or promotion (initially). Why is a question that may never be answered, but we do know how?
2009 was a weird year for YouTube as nobody really understood how to use the platform outside of a glorified video message board (side note: they need to bring video responses back). When the "You're a Jerk" video (along with other songs from their debut album) was released, two things happened.
The first thing is that the video instantly blew up to insane heights (while the current 80 million views on the video seem weak compared to other videos, for the time it did extremely well). While they were signed to a label at this point, It was pretty clear that the roots of the dance meant that the promotion was not needed. This is evident by the fact that the group Audio Push also released at the same time a song called "teach me how to jerk". These two songs created a lane for California artists (and eventually all artists) to make gimmicky fun dance music.
Which leads me to the second thing that happened, which is the cashout. The popularity of "you're a jerk" and "teach me how to Jerk" caused a whole bunch of people to make music that fits the aesthetics of the song. New Boyz themselves made a whole album of tracks that fit the aesthetic of the dance and the style of music they were messing with. While this has been done before, it has never (to my knowledge) created a craze like it with so many artists making their own take on the sound of "You're a Jerk" which would blow up immediately due to how popular the dance was. It even influenced later dances like the cat daddy or the Dougie which immediately followed.
Everything about the Jerk fit into the state of the culture at the time. The combination of sounds in music that were considered goofy gaining mainstream attention combined with the beginning of the shift of Hip-Hop towards a more singles-oriented genre made it so the Jerk craze could evolve on its own and differentiate itself from the rest of the culture along with its immediate successors.
Today, you see many artists/dancers desperately trying to capture that moment in their dances (cleverly disguised as "challenges" on social media in order to increase appeal) so they could have the next craze. Groups like Ayo and Teo have all the makings of a New Boyz, just not the signature dance move and song to it. However, Their dances fit so well in the culture of music that you can do their dances to practically every song. The issue with the "challenge" culture of social media is that once your dance is associated with this challenge or just a popular song, you can never break that connection and it will define the popularity of your dance once the hype dies down (I'm looking at you, Shiggy and 2Milly). What makes a dance really genuine and impactful to the culture is the ability for it to be used for artists to gain inspiration to create their own masterpieces, and that’s what Jerking (pause) did. I don’t know about you, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say things like this isn't going to inspire anyone anytime soon.
how to use the platform outside of a glorified video message board (side note: they need to bring video responses back). When the "You're a Jerk" video (along with other songs from their debut album) was released, two things happened.
The first thing is that the video instantly blew up to insane heights (while the current 80 million views on the video seem weak compared to other videos, for the time it did extremely well). While they were signed to a label at this point, It was pretty clear that the roots of the dance meant that the promotion was not needed. This is evident by the fact that the group Audio Push also released at the same time a song called "teach me how to jerk". These two songs created a lane for California artists (and eventually all artists) to make gimmicky fun dance music.
Which leads me to the second thing that happened, which is the cashout. The popularity of "you're a jerk" and "teach me how to Jerk" caused a whole bunch of people to make music that fits the aesthetics of the song. New Boyz themselves made a whole album of tracks that fit the aesthetic of the dance and the style of music they were messing with. While this has been done before, it has never (to my knowledge) created a craze like it with so many artists making their own take on the sound of "You're a Jerk" which would blow up immediately due to how popular the dance was. It even influenced later dances like the cat daddy or the Dougie which immediately followed.
Everything about the Jerk fit into the state of the culture at the time. The combination of sounds in music that were considered silly or simplistic gaining mainstream attention combined with the beginning of the shift of Hip-Hop towards a more singles-oriented genre made it so the Jerk craze could evolve on its own and differentiate itself from the rest of the culture along with its immediate successors.
Today, you see many artists/dancers desperately trying to capture that moment in their dances (cleverly disguised as "challenges" on social media in order to increase appeal) so they could have the next craze. Groups like Ayo and Teo have all the makings of a New Boyz, just not the signature dance move and song to it. However, Their dances fit so well in the culture of music that you can do their dances to practically every song. The issue with the "challenge" culture of social media is that once your dance is associated with this challenge or just a popular song, you can never break that connection and it will define the popularity of your dance once the hype dies down (I'm looking at you, Shiggy and 2Milly). What makes a dance really genuine and impactful to the culture is the ability for it to be used for artists to gain inspiration to create their own masterpieces, and that’s what Jerking (pause) did. I don’t know about you, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say things like this isn't going to inspire anyone anytime soon.