YOOOUUUU

A reader who commented on a previous entry about Open Source and Citizen Journalism mentioned the urban artist Soulja Boy. While the comment was more about how I could have discussed YouTube as a medium for citizen journalism, I thought I could put Soulja Boy to good use in a different entry. So thanks reader "Thomas" for the tip.

I won’t lie, I too have “Cranked Dat” a few times (possibly bordering on a regular basis) and I do not think there are many of my friends who haven’t attempted. In fact to my disbelief and shock I caught one quiet, shy and conservative housemate looking up the dance on YouTube last weekend. I’m yet to find any of them on YouTube just yet though. The appeal? The song itself honestly, is nothing special. The lyrics (definitely do not) hold any deep and meaningful sentiments and the dance itself is a whole lot of snapping, cranking right and left and pretending to be superman; anyone can do it, you don’t need to be JT or Chris Brown to be able to “Crank Dat”. I have a memory of a group of friends all learning the dance before hitting the clubs, and I think it is that feeling of community and connection that stems from the dance on song that might have something to do with the popularity of the song, because it’s certainly not the song itself...