Dancing fool?
February 27, 2011 12:11 AM   Subscribe

How would your life be different if your daddy loved to dance like this? SLYT
posted by growabrain (88 comments total) 26 users marked this as a favorite
 
The next Internet star.
posted by bwg at 12:22 AM on February 27, 2011


I'd be Turkish?
posted by Wyatt at 12:23 AM on February 27, 2011 [4 favorites]


Daddy was a raver...
posted by louche mustachio at 12:25 AM on February 27, 2011


Chilly Gonzales - You Can Dance
posted by netbros at 12:26 AM on February 27, 2011


Can we add our own soundtrack? I like this.
posted by naju at 12:38 AM on February 27, 2011 [10 favorites]


Kid in the chair off to the left is learning already.
posted by Ahab at 12:39 AM on February 27, 2011 [4 favorites]


What do you mean if?

(Actually, life would probably be way more awesome, because it would be filled with more people not afraid to have fun. Also, I'm looking forward to this as Dance Central DLC.)
posted by kmz at 12:40 AM on February 27, 2011 [4 favorites]


I LOVE THAT MAN. He's got way more rhythm than I do...
posted by stray at 12:45 AM on February 27, 2011


Judging from what I assume is his actual son in the bottom of the frame, I wouldn't care one bit.
posted by eugenen at 12:52 AM on February 27, 2011 [1 favorite]


So am I supposed to laugh at how other people in different parts of the world dance?
posted by XhaustedProphet at 12:56 AM on February 27, 2011


So am I supposed to laugh at how other people in different parts of the world dance?

No. Is this a joke?
posted by eugenen at 1:01 AM on February 27, 2011


I wasn't aware that I was supposed to be laughing, Xhausted, just soaking up the giddy dancing, slippers-flying greatness.
posted by naju at 1:02 AM on February 27, 2011 [1 favorite]


So am I supposed to laugh at how other people in different parts of the world dance?

No, you are supposed to reign in the snark and STFU if you can't contribute to the conversation in a positive manner.

You're Welcome.
posted by Dagobert at 1:02 AM on February 27, 2011 [7 favorites]



So am I supposed to laugh at how other people in different parts of the world dance?


No, you are supposed to laugh WITH them.
posted by louche mustachio at 1:04 AM on February 27, 2011 [5 favorites]


Things I Noticed:

The guy's slippers match his shirt.

He runs out of the room without even bothering to retrieve the aforementioned matching slippers.

The kid on the left knows how to groove.

There are eleven white fabric squares rotated 90 degrees and positioned on flat surfaces such that the frontmost corner hangs over the surface. Twelve if you count the tablecloth-on-tablecloth action in the corner.

Three of the cloth squares are placed in ways that would impede the functioning of the object that they're resting upon.

Including the one on the TV, which covers the top quarter of the screen.

But that's okay, because there's another TV right above the TV that's covered in cloth.
posted by SemiSophos at 1:05 AM on February 27, 2011 [18 favorites]


Thanks for the clarity.
posted by XhaustedProphet at 1:09 AM on February 27, 2011


So am I supposed to laugh at how other people in different parts of the world dance?

Look at the wry smile on the woman's face at the end. Dancing alone in your living room in front of your kids is goofy, silly fun, no matter what country you're in or what tradition your moves are drawn from. Do you think Turkish people are exempt from having embarrassing dads?
posted by embrangled at 1:11 AM on February 27, 2011 [2 favorites]


There are eleven white fabric squares rotated 90 degrees

~45, assuming initial corner-corner edge-edge alignment. But yes, how interesting.
posted by vrogy at 1:14 AM on February 27, 2011 [1 favorite]


Also, this dance number is rather wonderful.
posted by embrangled at 1:14 AM on February 27, 2011


~45, assuming initial corner-corner edge-edge alignment. But yes, how interesting.

Doh! I shouldn't attempt geometry at 3:00 AM...
posted by SemiSophos at 1:17 AM on February 27, 2011


God, this video just fills me with overflowing joy. I love the slippers and doilies. I haven't felt this great about humanity since the girl who played with webcam effects, or maybe double rainbow guy.
posted by a sourceless light at 1:22 AM on February 27, 2011 [1 favorite]


Do you think Turkish people are exempt from having embarrassing dads?

It is an essential, universal part of Dadness, bless it.
posted by louche mustachio at 1:22 AM on February 27, 2011 [5 favorites]


Granddaddy, surely?
posted by PeterMcDermott at 1:22 AM on February 27, 2011


Nice finishing move
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 1:49 AM on February 27, 2011


I love it!

I like how when stuff like this is posted there is always someone who assumes the poster has an ulterior, mean reason for posting it, as opposed to just for the joy of it. Happened to one of my posts and it still rankles a bit.
posted by maxwelton at 2:06 AM on February 27, 2011


This video demonstrates why if you go to the gym to work out, you're most likely doing it1 wrong.

1Life.
posted by -harlequin- at 2:49 AM on February 27, 2011


It is an essential, universal part of Dadness, bless it.

I want to have kids just so I can tell more dad-jokes.
posted by Silentgoldfish at 3:08 AM on February 27, 2011


The weird thing is that he does this professionally. The other girls at the club don't understand why he keeps getting dollar bills stuffed down his pants, and neither do I.
posted by twoleftfeet at 3:11 AM on February 27, 2011 [1 favorite]


Well, somebody is getting a bj tonight.
posted by porpoise at 3:17 AM on February 27, 2011


Hooray for dancing papas! Think how much less fucked up the entire baby boom would be if Ward Cleaver had danced like that.

Also, Tubedubber is fantastic.
posted by FelliniBlank at 3:34 AM on February 27, 2011 [5 favorites]


Does anybody remember when YouTube was devoted to scholarly lectures about important scientific and academic advancements? How we all swooned when there was a new video examining the dialectic between Thought and Thought-as-Action? There were videos of cats playing keyboards, playing obscure Bach orchestral suites, and videos of people falling from great heights, just to demonstrate Newton's Law of Gravitation. The overall tone of the YouTube video was different then. I remember seeing a wonderful YouTube video of a child biting another child's finger, with illuminating commentary from YouTube users about the socio-cultural attributes of juvenile cannibals.

That was a golden era of YouTube. Now it's just about sex, as this latest video implies.
posted by twoleftfeet at 3:41 AM on February 27, 2011 [2 favorites]


Youtube does have something golden, namely a shower, delivered via the comments section.
posted by maxwelton at 3:43 AM on February 27, 2011


APACI DANSI
posted by gubo at 4:04 AM on February 27, 2011


5 people never saw their daddies dancing.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 4:05 AM on February 27, 2011


How would your life be different if your daddy loved to dance like this? SLYT


As I gaze into the future, I see a tumblr site devoted entirely to this topic: fathers who dance in their living room.
posted by Fizz at 4:08 AM on February 27, 2011 [1 favorite]


I've watched this video 4 times in a row now, there's something about his energy and happiness that is so compelling.
posted by Fizz at 4:11 AM on February 27, 2011 [1 favorite]


Eat your heart out, Bristol Palin!

This guy gets it.
posted by leftcoastbob at 4:22 AM on February 27, 2011


There's more to this than meets the eye.
Apaci Dansi (second link 1.27)
Three

What is this song that gets people dancing?
posted by b33j at 4:45 AM on February 27, 2011 [3 favorites]


Living room dancing daddy is now right up there in my personal Pantheon of internet awesome with Techno Viking.
posted by madamjujujive at 4:46 AM on February 27, 2011 [2 favorites]


How would my life be different?

Swap this guy for a guy with who could easily pass for Santa Claus, except that he's in a wifebeater and Sears Roebuck yoke-style boxer shorts, put him in a pair of ancient soup-can AKG headphones tethered to the stereo with a bouncing arc of coiled cord, change the music to Frankie Goes to Hollywood, and exchange the kids for a dour, scowling teenaged me with a moussed mullet, explaining to my dad that this kind of dancing is decadent, vulgar, and possibly homosexual, and my life wouldn't be any different at all. It would, in fact, be a wonderful, amazing life, with the best kind of example to follow about how, sometimes, you just have to surrender to the most primal sources of joy and let those slippers fly.
posted by sonascope at 4:48 AM on February 27, 2011 [3 favorites]


And more
and this

I'd love an explanation.
posted by b33j at 4:51 AM on February 27, 2011


...is now right up there in my personal Pantheon of internet awesome with Techno Viking.
posted by Fizz at 4:51 AM on February 27, 2011 [4 favorites]


Thank you dancing dad. You have empowered me to finally have the courage to stand up and shout out for all to hear:

My name is KirkpatrickMac and I'm a daddy and I can* dance like that.

* can != always. Just wanted to clear that up.

My kids vacillate between being embarrassed by my dancing, and actually joining in with the dance. I prefer joining in.
posted by KirkpatrickMac at 4:52 AM on February 27, 2011 [3 favorites]


I smell revolution in the air!

A DANCE DANCE REVOLUTION
posted by drlith at 4:56 AM on February 27, 2011


So, I'm looking at turkish dance videos, and the feet together style that this guy does is just not represented. I wonder where he gets it from. (I'd like to learn to do it).
posted by b33j at 4:59 AM on February 27, 2011


Though sadly, my daughter has declared by such executive decree as only thirteen-year-old-daughters can decree, that henceforth and forthwith, upon penalty of much pouting and eye-rolling and general pissiness:

HER DADDY CAN'T DANCE
AND HER MOMMA CAN'T ROCK-N-ROLL
posted by drlith at 5:00 AM on February 27, 2011 [3 favorites]


It seems that Turkish men are really comfortable dancing with each other. That's pretty cool.
posted by b33j at 5:12 AM on February 27, 2011 [1 favorite]


Feel good movie of the year!
posted by to sir with millipedes at 5:55 AM on February 27, 2011


This is a vision of my future, and I couldn't be happier.
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 6:08 AM on February 27, 2011


"And that's what daddy's going to when we drop you off at school in the morning, every morning, until you get those grades up, little missy!"
posted by PlusDistance at 6:20 AM on February 27, 2011


How would your life be different if your daddy loved to dance like this? Maybe.
posted by dobbs at 6:52 AM on February 27, 2011 [1 favorite]


Growing up in my house it was the little boy who danced exuberantly (on my toes sometimes) while Dad watched uncomfortably.
posted by longsleeves at 7:06 AM on February 27, 2011


Judging from what I assume is his actual son in the bottom of the frame, I wouldn't care one bit.

Uh-uh. Check him out at 1:00. He's loving it but won't let himself admit it. Internalized shame at dance fun is a worldwide problem.
posted by mediareport at 7:11 AM on February 27, 2011 [1 favorite]


One of the saddest things about contemporary Western pop culture is that we are so convinced that dance is only the province of the young, conventionally attractive, and naturally gifted that we are actually in awe when we see someone who doesn't fit those descriptors participating in it. Dance is a near universal in human history. It's for everyone. In many cultures, it continues to be for everyone. And even in dance communities, like contra dancing and swing dancing, there are plenty of people who also groove like this and probably do it in their homes. It really makes me sad that some social mechanisms or other, which I haven't thought deeply enough about yet, have given dance to a very narrow subset of the population to be rewarded and celebrated for it, and essentially taken it away from the rest of us
posted by Miko at 7:28 AM on February 27, 2011 [27 favorites]


we are so convinced that dance is only the province of the young...essentially taken it away from the rest of us

There's no ID required for the Conga line, people, and if somebody thinks you're weird THEN YOU HAVE WON.
posted by longsleeves at 7:36 AM on February 27, 2011


I'd love an explanation.
Google to the rescue!

Apaci Danci appears to be Turkish for Apache Dance. It's a youth subculture thing that seems to have gone mainstream. And it delights babies!
posted by craichead at 7:40 AM on February 27, 2011 [1 favorite]


That looks so happy.
Dance is a great expression of joy. His example strengthens me in my habit of dancing with my 2+ yr old daughter.
I was amazed how my daughter responded to music and dance from -1 yr of age. It's that natural apparently.

I'm determined to make the best of the 10 yr window of paternal dancing that I apparently have until teenage eye-rolling and embarassment sets in.
posted by joost de vries at 7:53 AM on February 27, 2011


Nintendo needs to motion capture that guy for the next Mario game...

I wish I had his moves.
posted by Esteemed Offendi at 7:54 AM on February 27, 2011


This dub puts everything in a different context.
posted by rageagainsttherobots at 8:14 AM on February 27, 2011


Awesome Dad is Awesome.
posted by spoobnooble at 8:18 AM on February 27, 2011


That dude's as stiff as a brick.
posted by rmmcclay at 8:33 AM on February 27, 2011


my daughter's dad DOES dance, maybe not like that, maybe a little more like Groo or the humans on world of warcraft, but dancing of this sort breaks out in our house all the time. It's how I know our family is happy. He taught her to do Hammer time when she was three and caused the uptight Illinois suburb Montessori school's teachers to be quite nonplussed.
posted by pywacket at 8:42 AM on February 27, 2011


Having such a daddy might not have changed my life, but seeing this daddy dancing now may change my life--by persuading me to have my own kids in order to dance for them.
posted by Beardman at 9:11 AM on February 27, 2011


5 people never saw their daddies dancing.

Thanks for bringing this up. This trend in youtube of strawmanning people who dislike the video on offer is a fantastic example of preaching to the choir.

How would your life be different if your daddy loved to dance like this?

I'd be disappointed that my dad's skills had rusted /5 y.o.
posted by ersatz at 9:20 AM on February 27, 2011


I could never be so unselfconscious to dance like that. Bravo!
posted by tommasz at 10:01 AM on February 27, 2011


I'd be disappointed that my dad's skills had rusted

Maybe your dad never had the dance skills to begin with. Maybe it was his self-confident, carefree self-expression that attracted your mother to him, not his dancing prowess.

Or maybe your mom's just easy.
posted by maryr at 10:05 AM on February 27, 2011


You know what would make this better?

If someone who has a very young child, about the age where the joy of independent movement has just kicked in, makes a reply video of said child doing the Baby Dance while watching the Daddy Dance.

Maybe even several babies. All doing the Baby Dance to the Daddy Dance.


Then again, that might create such an intense concentration of my heart would explode.
posted by louche mustachio at 10:36 AM on February 27, 2011


I love this. I watched the first minute or so thinking "oh, man, this is going to be used in so many memes", before realising that actually there is literally nothing you can do to it to make it better than it already is. It stands alone, on a shining pinnacle of awesome. Kind of like Trololol in that regard, but significantly less creepy.
posted by ZsigE at 10:37 AM on February 27, 2011 [2 favorites]


I just love how happy he is, he makes me happy.
posted by Fizz at 11:19 AM on February 27, 2011


Funny how many curmudgeons there are out there who can't see the pure joy in this. If our world was filled with people who danced with such abandon and pure fun and playfulness, the comments sections would be full of praise and links to other pieces of boundless joy, until the branding wizards drop by to capitalize:

Lamentations by Alex Grey

"From Under
A Spell of Terror
Spilled illness and Rage
Uncontained
Furious as Hell
Spurious Oil Well
Rot in the Heart
A Sticky Smell
Leaks through Lies
And tells the truth
That rings the Bell
That tolls the U.S.
Us.

America
You've sold your Soul
For a little Capital

Friends of death
Speaking with Apocalips
And mi$$le throats
And Iron Lungs
And crooked tongues

CorporationNation
Killing truth
Replacing goodness with greed
Spacificing beauty
As minds and planet are polluted

Why must we so
Unfulfill our promise
How dare we stand
For absence of freedom
Freedom is a real responsibility
But America
We have sold our Soul
For a little capital"


-From Art Psalms
posted by jackspace at 11:47 AM on February 27, 2011


Funny how many curmudgeons there are out there who can't see the pure joy in this.

It's similar to that older thread about the kid on the hill unselfconsciously dancing alone, before everyone eventually got up and joined him. (Sadly the video is no longer available, at least at the link in that thread.)
posted by inigo2 at 12:22 PM on February 27, 2011


My life wouldn't be any different, because that IS my dad, or might as well be my dad. He also likes to sing cutesy family songs in Farsi at the grocery store so that I will run away screaming in embarrassment.
posted by Menomena at 12:26 PM on February 27, 2011 [2 favorites]


Also, was anyone else afraid he was going to kick the kid by accident? Or step on him?
posted by Menomena at 12:27 PM on February 27, 2011


My grandparents were much into dancing in their 70's, which aligned appropriately with the raving 90's. I remember my grandmother dancing on tables at a huge event in -92, and I had youtube-friendly images of them falling around at their 50th anniversary. Since they are very smart, they have deleted these vids. Don't think they stuck to jive. My grandmother is still friends with several 90's artists.
posted by mumimor at 1:55 PM on February 27, 2011


The dad willing to make a fool of themselves for their kid's amusement is the best kind of dad. My dad did a lot of this sort of thing, accompanied with a Donald Duck voice I got a huge kick out of.
posted by Foam Pants at 3:22 PM on February 27, 2011


On the other hand, there are some styles of Daddy dancing that might require being confined to a tent in the backyard.
posted by madamjujujive at 4:31 PM on February 27, 2011


Would have been worse, I think, but you tell me: my dad used to sing the Purdue Fight Song during every televised Boilermaker game - in the TV room - and I was mortified. Then again, I was a little rotten bastard to my dad as a kid.
posted by nj_subgenius at 4:48 PM on February 27, 2011


How this video was meant to be seen...

Now this is how the video was meant to be seen. (NSFW)
posted by Godwin Interjection at 5:06 PM on February 27, 2011


Maybe your dad never had the dance skills to begin with. Maybe it was his self-confident, carefree self-expression that attracted your mother to him, not his dancing prowess.

Or maybe your mom's just easy.


Never seen my dad dancing, eh?

Easy like Sunday morning?
posted by ersatz at 5:58 PM on February 27, 2011


I would only believe in a Dad that knows how to dance.
posted by benzenedream at 12:06 AM on February 28, 2011


"Mooommmmmm!?!!! Daddy found the ecstasy again!!!"
posted by LordSludge at 2:22 AM on February 28, 2011


Shangaan Electro YouDubber-version

'Cause my dad if he danced like this would always dance to African new wave
posted by humannaire at 5:37 AM on February 28, 2011


I thought to myself that I just couldn't imagine my dad doing this. Then I remembered that he joined us playing Rock Band on Saturday night and sang Aqualung, Go Your Own Way, Dirty Deeds and various Grateful Dead songs. My dad's OK.
posted by MsVader at 6:24 AM on February 28, 2011


What do you mean if?

I am with kmz on this one. As a teenager, I went through a brief phase of building Tamiya model tanks. I was assembling a diorama once and was about to place this American GI: leaning back, grimacing, looking off to one side (chin just about on his shoulder) with one arm outstretched to counterbalance the extended other arm, the hand of which is clutching the grenade he is about to hurl.

My mom looked at the figure and said thoughtfully, "That looks just like your father dancing."
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:25 AM on February 28, 2011


It seems that Turkish men in many cultures and throughout history and even in modern North America are really comfortable dancing with each other. That's pretty cool.

Fixed that for you.
posted by humannaire at 10:34 AM on February 28, 2011


How interesting, humannaire, that you think my comment about Turkish men excluded all other men, including those in your country. No need to fix anything for me, but thanks for the snark.
posted by b33j at 1:24 AM on March 1, 2011 [1 favorite]


Here's a pretty good example of what Hasan Baba is having fun with.
posted by Kattullus at 12:49 PM on March 2, 2011


ZsigE: I love this. I watched the first minute or so thinking "oh, man, this is going to be used in so many memes", before realising that actually there is literally nothing you can do to it to make it better than it already is.

Yes. But Thom York vs. Hasan Baba is a pretty good effort.
posted by Kattullus at 12:53 PM on March 2, 2011


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