Every College Student in Boston Spent the Storm Making the Same YouTube Video

Boston’s multitudes of college kids had a lot of time on their hands while snowed in by last weekend’s blizzard, and according to our calculations, approximately 97 percent of them spent that time in the same way: making a Harlem Shake video on YouTube.

For the uninitiated, the Harlem Shake is a new viral video craze. It’s origins are slightly unclear, but in any case, each Harlem Shake video follows the same format. One crazy person dances alone while other bystanders ignore him and go about their business, all while the song “Harlem Shake” by Baauer plays. When the song reaches its bass drop, the entire crowd of participants is suddenly dancing, often in crazy costumes. College Humor’s version is a well-produced, fairly standard example.

Anyway, fall down the rabbit hole and you will find literally thousands of imitations, including at least one from almost every single institution of higher learning in Boston. Look, here are some MIT frat guys doing it:

Look, here they are in a library at BC:

Here’s one in a Harvard dining hall:

Here they are on the Common:

They’re doing it at Berklee. They’re doing it at Northeastern. Literally every single college student had the same idea and the same amount of free time with which to execute it.

It’s enough to make us think of another popular internet meme—Condescending Wonka:

But honestly, we’re embarrassed at how much entertainment we derive from the inevitable result of every single Harlem Shake video, so we can’t condescend too seriously. Have your fun, kids, because sadly, we’ll probably click on every single one of your versions.