*Art and Religion II: "Harlem Shake"

Having decided to take a break, I stumbled across an internet meme that simply... well, take a look:


THIS is what is being pranced around the internet as the "Harlem Shake"! My first reaction was: 'that's not the Harlem Shake, the f*** are they doing?'  

I remember first seeing the Harlem Shake on a G-Dep video with P-Diddy, 'Let's Get It' in 2001:


Not quite the same...

Interestingly enough, somebody went to Harlem and asked them what they thought about the meme:



If we can make the analogy between music cultures and religion (and there really should be an anthropology of hip hop), there are two things that come to my attention in which there is a parallel with the anthropology of religion. One, the bastardization of a culture. And two, the critique from orthodoxy. The former alludes to the internet meme that is happening now, how different it is to the original and the silly audacity to use the same name. What perhaps started out in a college dorm room of goofy kids making fun of something that just happened to go viral. This takes the original name of a practice (in this case, dance) and strips it of its origins to create something new (these videos). We can say the same about meditation practices of 'Buddhism' or kids taking psychedelic cactii or the "white shaman" who takes spiritual practices from a culture and claims authority, promotes it to other persons, markets the "spiritual journey" and so on. The latter is the critique from those who do know and have a sense of identity to Harlem and the culture.This would be the critique from culture. The Zen Buddhists in Japan or the Native Americans and the purpose of peyote or sweat lodges in their spirituality. We could also talk about how certain Christians condemned how Christians in other countries adapted the religion into their culture. The Vatican has been known to condemn other churches as non-orthodox. This happens with the Greek Orthodox tradition as well. Much like these critiques, the people of Harlem and those who do the 'Harlem Shake' criticize those who have taken the name and have produced something different, that is, for me at least, far from the original 'Harlem Shake'.

While one, we should beg the question and indeed ask: how is hip hop culture like religious culture? Is it or is it not. And secondly, we can ask if these questions and critiques are legitimately similar. That is, are the critiques of bastardization and the critique of orthodoxy/legitimacy valid?