Remember when the entire internet collectively lost its mind dancing to a 30-second song in February 2013? The Harlem Shake meme wasn't just viral—it was a cultural phenomenon that peaked at nearly 4,000 videos uploaded *per day*. Brooklyn producer Baauer's track, originally released in 2012, suddenly became the soundtrack to organized chaos worldwide.

Here's the wild part: the meme format was accidentally created by five Australian teenagers known as The Sunny Coast Skate. Their February 2nd video featured one person dancing alone while everyone ignored them, then—after the beat drop—absolute pandemonium. Within days, the format exploded. Everyone from college students to the Norwegian Army to employees at the Maker Studios office (whose version went mega-viral) was filming their own interpretation.

The track actually samples a 1981 song by Plastic Little and features a vocal snippet that says "con los terroristas"—which became strangely iconic despite most people having no idea what it meant. But here's the controversy: residents of Harlem were pretty annoyed that this meme had nothing to do with the actual Harlem Shake, a dance that originated in their neighborhood in the 1980s. The real Harlem Shake involved completely different moves and cultural significance.

By March 2013, it was over as quickly as it began. The meme burned so bright and fast that it basically exhausted itself within a month—a perfect example of internet culture's beautiful chaos.