The Band of the Bold

About

The Band of the Bold, also known as #JoggingManChallenge, is a series of videos in which comedian Marlon Webb jogs through neighborhoods with a group of friends while the songs "Take On Me" and "Stayin' Alive" are heard playing in the background.

Origin

On June 12th, 2016, Webb posted a video titled "The Band of the Bold" to his Facebook page,^[1] in which three men are shown jogging with a wide gait to the tune of the 1984 synthpop song "Take on Me" by A-ha (shown below). Within two months, the video gained over 11.6 million views, 200,000 shares and 39,000 comments.

Spread

The following day, the video was reuploaded to the Ready to Monday YouTube^[2] channel, and two days later, it reached the front page of Reddit's /r/videos^[3] community. On June 28th, Webb posted a sequel video featuring the same group of joggers running down a street to the 1977 disco hit single “Stayin’ Alive” by the Bee Gees (shown below, left). On July 5th, Webb uploaded a third video in the series, which shows the group fleeing from a police officer with “Take On Me” playing in the background (shown below, right)

On July 23rd, YouTuber Impact Props uploaded a parody video titled “The Band of the Spartans,” wherein several Halo cosplayers recreate Webb’s video at the RTX convention in Austin, Texas (shown below, left). In less than a week, the video accrued nearly 240,000 views. The next day, a GIF from the video reached the frontpage of the /r/gaming^[6] subreddit. On July 26th, YouTuber ThePruld uploaded a Dark Souls-themed parody video, which accrued over 300,000 views within 48 hours after reaching the front page of the /r/gaming^[5] subreddit later that same day. (shown below, right). On July 27th, Redditor gnarledout submitted a post asking about variations of the jogging dance to /r/OutOfTheLoop.^[4]

Search Interest

External References