As we (cautiously) sound the death knell on the Harlem Shake video trend, data collected by YTD YouTube Downloader reveals just how much time was actually spent watching the multitude of these tributes online.
The exact figure is a whopping 2,782 years of time that could have been better spent earning more than 50,000 bachelor’s degrees, travelling to the sun and back more than 2,000 times, or watching every episode of Law and Order more than 33,000 times.
The reason for the whopping amount of time spent viewing Harlem Shakes is the sheer volume of these videos that appeared on YouTube between February and March this year. Sports teams, celebrities, major multinationals and TV shows were all jumping on the bandwagon, as well as regular Joe YouTube users.
According to YTD’s stats, uploads of Harlem Shake videos peaked in mid-February and (thankfully) have been in decline coming into March. However, being late to the game does not make for low viewing figures as US basketball team Miami Heat’s submission – uploaded just two and a half weeks ago – has received more than 41m views to date.
In Ireland, the Harlem Shake was just about all we could talk about for a while there, making us No 2 in the world for discussing the video meme online.
While some memes never die, we think it’s time to bid adieu to the Harlem Shake when this happens:
