The internet is now littered with videos of various idiots doing their own rendition of the newest internet sensation, The Harlem Shake, which features a bunch of people dancing to what is one of the worst songs ever recorded. No one in their right mind would listen to that song in any other context other than watching morons who think they are doing something clever repeat the same joke over and over. I might give a little credit to whoever was the first one to put one of these videos out, but at this point that person should only get credit for wasting countless hours of our collective lives seeing or hearing the videos which every group, including some of our beloved sports teams, putting out their very own version. What is it about people that makes them so uncreative that they need to take some lame idea and then repeat it until every sane person wants to strangle the next person who even mentions the words Harlem or Shake? Sharing the videos like every other internet meme and laughing hysterically as they watch all of their equally dumb friends comment and like the posts. The worst part of this whole pop culture debacle is the fact that the song hit the top of the Billboard charts, but not because lots of people bought the song, instead because it received millions of YouTube plays. For the first time ever Billboard decided that it was time to count internet plays in calculating what the number one song in the country is. For the second time in the last year an annoying internet sensation has made it to the top of the charts. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out in the next few years because we are sure to see a whole lot more of these type of hits now that YouTube views count towards how Billboard charts songs. Who knows, in the next couple years we will be wishing there were songs like the Harlem Shake around while we are stuck listening to a squirrel sing a cover of Dancing Queen by ABBA and happened to get 20o million plays on YouTube. The future of top 40 could be very bleak in the years to come.
