About

The Ostrich Dance, also known as the Sweatshirt Monster, is a video fad that involves putting one's legs through the sleeves of a hooded sweatshirt and dancing awkwardly to hip hop music. In September 2013, the fad began to spread on Vine and Tumblr in the form of short-length video clips and GIFs.

Origin

The dance has been circulating on YouTube since as early as in 2010, with the earliest known instance uploaded by YouTuber SydandJord123 in a video titled "The Sweatshirt Dance" on August 6th, 2010.

Spread

The fad continued to make in roads on YouTube^[8] in the following years, though for the most part, it remained a minor-scale development until early September 2013, when Vine user Brenton Thurman^[2] submitted a short video clip of himself doing the Ostrich Dance on top of a pool table (shown below). Within the first two months of upload, Thurman's Vine clip has accrued more than 1.4 million views.

Notable Examples

Throughout September and October 2013, a slew of copycat videos attempting the Ostrich Dance were uploaded to Vine.^[9]

Search Interest

External References: