Why the Harlem Shake Matters

Updated Feb. 21, 2013 11:57 p.m. ET

Swimmers underwater did it. Free-falling sky divers did it, and Norwegian soldiers. So did Nascar driver Jeff Gordon and the animals at SeaWorld.

The participants in a dance craze mushrooming on the Web have been wildly diverse, but the format of their videos is invariably the same: Each starts with someone dancing solo to an escalating rhythm, surrounded by people oblivious to his moves. Then there's a camera cut, a big beat drops,...

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