From 4chan Ridicule To Twitter Glory: The Dancing Man Story
We'll Dance With You, Dancing Man!
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| www.mashable.com |
If I were to list all the unfortunate individuals who have
gone viral online because people flocked to make fun of them, I would have to
do it in a featureless padded room free from windows and sharp objects. I’d
probably need to have Stevie Wonder and Curtis Mayfield playing in the
background the whole time too. What I’m getting at here is that it would be
depressing and it would take ages.
Cyber-bullying is a nasty, relentless monster that knows no
boundaries or limits and its most recent victim was a Londoner named Sean, or
better known as ‘The Dancing Man’. Two photographs of him, first dancing and
then looking rather dejected surfaced on 4chan with the caption: “Spotted this
specimen trying to dance the other week. He stopped when he saw us laughing.”
This could have very easily stopped there, but thankfully for
Sean, and humanity at large, it didn’t. Within hours of the photo appearing, a
massive Twitter campaign to find Sean began to gain traction, spearheaded by
Cassandra Fairbanks, an LA-based writer for The Free Thought Project. She began
by tracking Sean down and amassing over 1700 other Californian women in order
to throw a party for Sean, one which would not only allow him to dance but
celebrate it.
YAY TWITTER!!! @Dancingmanfound #FindDancingMan ❤️❤️❤️
We are going to dance!!! pic.twitter.com/G7FxuiSsIh
— Cassandra (@CassandraRules) March 6, 2015
Before long the campaign started to gain ground on a global
scale, with $30,000 being raised to fund the party (and be donated to
anti-bullying causes) and numerous celebrities joined in to show their support,
such as Pharrell and Ellie Goulding. The Los Angeles Coliseum have said they’ll
host the party, Fireball Whiskey have gotten in on the act and Moby, keen to maintain his reputation as the nicest guy in
electronic music, has offered to DJ pro-bono. Smartly, Fairbanks and her
supporters have opted not to track down the anonymous 4chan poster, suggesting
that doing so would only invite more abuse, just in a different direction.
i offer my dj services for free for #DancingMan #DancingManFound #FindDancingMan . no one should ever be ashamed about dancing.
— moby Ⓥ (@thelittleidiot) March 6, 2015
Ive never received so much love, youre lovely, but I cannot stress enough this wasnt me. I just threw out an invite. Twitter made it happen.
— Cassandra (@CassandraRules) March 6, 2015
Beyond the party itself, the story has also sparked off the #dancefree trend, which invites everyone to upload a 10 second video of themselves dancing in some iconic local area in order to combat bullying.
We love you @soulpancake are you guys going to dance with dancing man? #kidpresident pic.twitter.com/pYBkN0M2QW
— Hope Leigh (@HOPELEIGHMUSIC) March 10, 2015
Body-shaming is an all-too-common phenomenon online, and
numerous campaigns have flared up to combat it in the past, such as Be
Real and Dove’s recent #speakbeautiful initiative, but it’s fair to say there’s
never been one quite like this. No confirmation yet as to the actual date of
the party, but you can be sure that when it happens there will be plenty of
adjacent Twitter activity (and perhaps even a livestream of the event).
Callum Davies
Callum is a film school graduate who is now making a name for himself as a journalist and content writer. His vices include flat whites and 90s hip-hop. Follow him @CallumAtSMF
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From 4chan Ridicule To Twitter Glory: The Dancing Man Story
Reviewed by Unknown
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Thursday, March 12, 2015
Rating:
Reviewed by Unknown
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Thursday, March 12, 2015
Rating:
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