They scavenged costumes from the thrift store below: a sequined blazer too small for Devon, a worn astronaut helmet, a cheerleader skirt with more nostalgia than fabric. They filmed in the building's communal lounge, the camera leaning on a battered copy of Moby-Dick. Devon choreographed with exaggerated awkwardness—his signature—then, at the dramatic "drop", the scene exploded into chaos: roommates, exchange students, and two startled delivery drivers burst in, each performing a single, absurd move before freezing like statues mid-meme.
In the original video, the solo dancer was credited as "Steezy Grossman." A few days later, a secondary upload of the video appeared on YouTube titled simply: harlem shake poop steezy grossman internet archive
For scholars and future observers, archived iterations of “Harlem Shake — poop steezy Grossman” serve as primary evidence of early-2010s memetic practices: the pursuit of virality through shock, participatory remix culture, and the ways online norms tolerated or resisted gross-out humor. Archives captured not just the videos but metadata: upload dates, tags, creators’ handles, and comment threads that map reception. They scavenged costumes from the thrift store below:
In 2013, at the height of the "Harlem Shake" viral dance craze, John released a video titled . Unlike the thousands of other versions of the meme that involved groups of people dancing wildly after a jump cut, John’s version took an extreme, "hard R-rated" turn. In the original video, the solo dancer was