Thursday, September 27, 2012
Psy 101: Deconstructing a viral hot mess
Posted by Stephanie Powers on Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 12:45 PM
I quickly became obsessed with the Korean pop sensation's video. More obsessed than I was with Tay Zonday’s “Chocolate Rain."
Don’t even get me started on Tay Zonday. Psy released his first album in Korea in 2001 but has been almost unheard of in America. Psy’s video is catchy, absurd and utterly amazing. The song, likewise.
“Heeeey, sexy lady!” Along with that catchy refrain, there is glitter and dancing ladies and a guy with a Dee Dee Ramone haircut in a neon yellow suit having a dance-off with Psy. I personally like the guy wearing beach attire and a straw cowboy hat straddling Psy in an elevator and hump dancing to the beat. The settings for the video range from horse stables to saunas to boats to carousels to party buses to pools to yoga classes.
The horse stable setting is most important because this is where we first see Psy doing his soon-to-be-famous dance. The invisible horse dance. I quickly learned that the tragedy of me breaking my leg was not being out of work for possibly four months. It was not being able to learn this dance and perform it for anyone that would watch.
After a couple days of playing the video for my boyfriend, parents and 3-year-old niece 1,000 times a day, Psy was doing his dance on the MTV Video Music Awards next to tiny host Kevin Hart. “Uh-oh,” I thought. Other people might get in on this. Then he was on Ellen twice. Then he was on Saturday Night Live and The Today Show.
Soon after, Justin Bieber’s manager Scooter Braun signed him. Psy set a Guinness world record for most Youtube likes. He is no longer just mine. He belongs to the world now. Everyone will fall in love with his blue and black tuxedos, his slicked-back hair and spectator shoes. Everyone will be doing the invisible horse dance, except me. By the time I get healed enough to show off the dance it will have gone the way of the Macarena. Tragic.
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