About

1988 Crystal Light National Aerobic Championship refers to a viral video featuring the opening dance sequence from the 1988 Crystal Light National Aerobic Championships, which was widely circulated online after being uploaded to YouTube in early 2010.

Origin

On April 4th, 2010, YouTuber mittdawson uploaded a video titled "1988 Crystal Light National Aerobic Championship Opening" (shown below). Within seven years, the video accumulated upwards of 3.8 million views and 160 comments.

Spread

On April 17th, 2012, BuzzFeed^[1] published a listicle containing 40 animated GIF clips from the video. On June 18th, Redditor crunchysloth submitted the video to /r/videos,^[3] where it gathered upwards of 1,100 points (86% upvoted) and 290 comments prior to being archived. On March 6th, 2013, Ebaum's World^[2] published a collection of Deal With It GIFs featuring a clip from the Crystal Light National Aerobic Champsionship (shown below).

On August 24th, 2013, YouTuber Prautz uploaded a shortened version of the original video, which received upwards of 2.9 million views 1,800 comments over the next four years (shown below).

On November 7th, 2014, YouTuber Joe Kardon uploaded a remix of the original video dubbed with the theme song from "Too Many Cooks" (shown below, left). On November 20th, the Comedy Central YouTube channel uploaded a Key and Peele parody of the video, in which a aerobics dancer attempts to murder a fellow performer on stage (shown below, right).

Zarya's Overwatch Dance

As part of Blizzard's community event for the one-year anniversary of Overwatch launched on May 23rd, 2017, a new emote was included for the hero Zarya which mimicked various dances from the YouTube video. That day, Tumblr user mobbukuns^[4] uploaded a video showing the dances side-by-side, which gained upwards of 36,000 notes within 24 hours (shown below).

Search Interest

External References