Cumulatively, they’ve been watched more than 44 million times this week, and
YouTube reported that more than 12,000 Harlem Shake videos had been uploaded by close of business Monday. They all follow a simple formula: There’s a mundane setting—dorm room, office, kitchen—and one person in some kind of odd headgear starts wiggling his hips while everyone else ignores him. Then the beat pops on “Harlem Shake” and—magic moment!—cut to the whole room going wild. (Though no one’s actually doing the real Harlem Shake, a slightly trickier dance from the 1980s with more hip swinging and shoulder shaking—there’s a hefty bit of creative borrowing happening here.)