If you were on the Quad last Wednesday at 1:50 p.m., you would have witnessed yet another example of the viral video phenomenon surrounding the Harlem Shake. University students — dressed in a variety of masked, cartoonish costumes — created a mob of dancing convulsions to the music of Baauer’s hit single of the same name. But could it be said they were doing the actual Harlem Shake dance? Not in the slightest.

What you’ll see now in your Google or YouTube search is a growing list of videos featuring an individual dancing alone amongst a commonplace group of people, before the shot jumps to the entire group wildly joining in once the song reaches the “drop.” According to an article by the SocialTimes, over 4,000 of these videos are uploaded to YouTube every day, with some having been watched upward of 44 million times.

The original video seems to have been traced back to that of a New York college student under the YouTube username Filthy Frank, and has since caused an avalanche of videos throughout the month of February. It has been replicated by everyone, from skydivers to puppies to numerous universities across the country.

Buried under this current fad, however, lies an actual dance from the 1980s. Harlem resident and rapper Al-B claims to be its creator, originally calling the dance the “albee,” sourcing  its rhythmic shaking and rolling to mimic the movement of Egyptian mummies and the Ethiopian form of dance called “Eskista.” The dance was later referred to as the Harlem Shake once it spread outside the Harlem community. It peaked in popularity during the early 2000s when it was featured in a the video for “Let’s Get It,” performed by rappers G. Dep, Black Rob and P. Diddy.

What do Harlem residents think of the “new” dance? In a video filmed right outside of Harlem’s Apollo Theater, residents’ responses ranged from lighthearted criticism to dismayed disbelief. The responses firmly point out that the spastic gyrations displayed in the videos are nowhere near the rhythmic bodily shakes and shimmying of the original dance. While some residents simply laughed it off, one of the locals articulated a heavier common response: “It looks like they’re making fun of it.”

That sentiment is now part of a collection of cultural criticism against the meme. Some have claimed the fad has figuratively killed a dance that’s part of the strong Harlem community, with a New York Times article stating “the explosion of this song, and its accompanying videos, threatens to all but obliterate the original dance’s claim on the name.”

Of course, when searching for examples of the Harlem Shake, the current meme is sure to dominate your results. And surely, if you were to ask any high school or university student to describe the dance, you’d get a description of energetic failings to a techno track. But is this enough to call the meme the cause for white cultural appropriation and racism? I wouldn’t take it that far.

It’s clear when watching the crowd last Wednesday that no one was intentionally stripping a Harlem facet of its cultural context and meaning. To me, it’s more along the lines of innocent fun. Still, it’s easy to sympathize with the Harlem residents who feel a part of their culture has been stolen and misrepresented.

The quick fix? It’s quite clear if the meme’s dance isn’t exactly the Harlem Shake, it shouldn’t be called so, despite whatever samplings the hit song used and then was named for. But with thousands of videos still being uploaded with the name, that damage might be irreversible.

However, that’s the thing about fads. They’re short-lived. Just like every other viral video, it’s going to pass and fade out of the cultural mainstream within the year. It will be up for the taking once again. And if it’s truly a part of the Harlem community, it will continue to be so, despite ever having been confused with the ephemeral whimsy of happy video dancers.

Sarah is a sophomore in Media and can be reached at [email protected].