About

Stock Dancing, also known as Lights, Camera, Action and Stock Shuffle, refers to a series of stop motion animation dancing videos made with stock images of people and animals. The video format achieved popularity in 2023, and commonly uses either an original musical composition by Beeni or "Lights, Camera, Action!" from the Sonic Mania soundtrack.

Origin

On February 3rd, 2023, YouTube^[1] user InklingCurry posted a stop motion animation dancing video composed of multiple stock images of the same man and set to music composition "Intensity 7" by composer Beeni, from the Super Bomb Survival soundtrack. The 27-second video (shown below) received over 1.3 million views in ten months.

Spread

On March 1st, 2023, YouTube^[2] user MistaScoot posted the earliest derivative meme within the format. In the video, which received over 62,000 views in nine months, a man dances to "Donut Plains" from the Super Mario World soundtrack. On May 25th, YouTube^[3] user molotov posted a dancing video made with stock images of cats that receive over 721,000 views in six months (shown below, right).

On July 4th, 2023, YouTube^[4] and X^[5] / Twitter user BugOlviely made a dancing video made with stock images of a man set to "Lights, Camera, Action!" from the Sonic Mania soundtrack. The video (shown below) garnered over 1.9 million views on YouTube and 5.5 million views on X in five months.

The video popularized the use of "Lights, Camera, Action!" as one of the default songs used within the format.

In the following months, multiple versions of the meme using both songs achieved popularity on YouTube, with some examples abandoning the stock image formula instead of traditional animation, and "Stock Shuffle" being used as the meme title by some posters.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References