Steezy Grossman Internet Archive — Harlem Shake Poop
Archival Report: The “Harlem Shake Poop Steezy Grossman” Internet Artifact
Date of Analysis: 2024–2025
Subject: Cross-reference of viral memes, scatological humor, dance culture, and internet preservation.
Requestor: Curious net archeologist.
Prologue: A Viral Primer (2013)
In early 2013 the “Harlem Shake” meme erupted: short videos that began with one person dancing alone among oblivious others, then cut to an all-out, chaotic group dance to Baauer’s track “Harlem Shake.” The memetic template spread rapidly across YouTube and social networks, spawning thousands of playful, low-budget variations and becoming a defining short-form meme of that year.
2. Hypothesis: What Does This Combination Refer To?
No single mainstream video matches all four keywords exactly. However, they likely point to a lost or low-viewership YouTube poop / meme mashup from the early 2010s with the following plot:
A dancer (Steezy Grossman parody) does the Harlem Shake, then unexpectedly defecates (“poop”)—or a cartoon poop emoji appears. The video was uploaded to YouTube, later deleted, but preserved on the Internet Archive via a Wayback Machine capture or as a .mp4 in the Community Video collection.
Harlem Shake, Poop, Steezy Grossman, and the Internet Archive — A Short Story
It started as a joke in a cramped dorm room above a thrift store. Devon—nicknamed Steezy Grossman for the way he moved, half awkward, half effortless—was never one to let an idea die quietly. When the Harlem Shake hit the campus weeks earlier, it had become a currency: whoever could out-weird the others got attention, and attention was a kind of oxygen. harlem shake poop steezy grossman internet archive
On a rain-slick Thursday, Devon scrolled through old clips on the Internet Archive, hunting for inspiration. He found everything from forgotten local access shows to grainy VHS raves, relics of a time when performance felt both desperate and sincere. He bookmarked a late-night public-access sketch where a man in a rubber chicken mask danced in slow, tragic circles. That was the tone he wanted: ridiculousness threaded through with melancholy.
"Listen," he told his roommate Mara, eyes bright. "What if we do a Harlem Shake, but—like—a full narrative? Not just the drop. A micro-movie. And, uh, it involves poop."
Mara snorted but sat up. "You can't just say 'poop' and expect people to get philosophical."
"Not toilet humor," Devon said. "An accidental manifesto. Society's little refuse becoming the centerpiece. We dress it up—make it art." Archival Report: The “Harlem Shake Poop Steezy Grossman”
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.
The prop in question was a small, suspicious lump of papier-mâché, painted mustard-brown and placed reverently on a pedestal—a trophy for life’s little failures. They called it The Relic. The camera caught a montage: hands reaching, people sniffing, a cheerleader handing The Relic to an elderly neighbor who’d come to watch. For a beat, everyone bowed.
They uploaded the short to the Internet Archive as "Harlem Shake: The Relic of Ridicule (Steezy Grossman Remix)". The Archive's indifferent eternity suited them: it wasn't about going viral so much as being preserved. The metadata was a mess—tags like "dance", "meme", "art", and, inexplicably, "bathroom science"—but that felt right. People trawled the Archive for meaning and found this curious artifact like a fossil.
At first, the upload went nowhere. Then a late-night DJ on a small community radio show discovered it and played a clip between songs, laughing as he read the description. A forum thread picked it up, then a blog, then a thread on a mainstream site dissecting whether it was satire or sincere. Comments piled up: some praised the audacity, some cringed, some declared it peak campus absurdity. Devon read them all, feeling the odd cocktail of embarrassment and pride. A dancer (Steezy Grossman parody) does the Harlem
Months later, at a reunion party, they played the clip on a loop. People mimed its gestures, turned The Relic into a drinking game, and argued if the stunt had been cruel to The Relic or compassionate—an offering to the ridiculousness of youth. The Internet Archive had kept the file pristine: the same grain, the same amateur jump cuts, the same lump painted with reverence.
Steezy Grossman—Devon only by legal name—walked home that night under sodium lights, the city humming like an exhausted engine. He thought about the Archive: a place where small, foolish things could outlast reputation, where the stupid and sublime lived side by side. Maybe that was the point. To make something that made people laugh and squirm, then leave it to be found later by strangers who might find, in that squirm, a glimmer of being alive.
Years on, someone cataloging internet ephemera would note the clip as "an example of early 21st-century meme-performance art." They would write about college rituals and the hunger for attention. They might even call it a scandal. But to the people who made it—the ones who had held The Relic like a sacrament—it was simply proof that ridiculousness, when performed earnestly, becomes its own kind of grace.
: Before his success as Blippi, Stevin John created "shock comedy" videos under this alias. The character was often involved in "gross-out" humor, including other videos like "Turdboy" and "Underwear Man". The Harlem Shake Video : At the height of the Harlem Shake meme
in 2013, John uploaded a version where, at the "drop" of the song, he defecated on a naked friend. Re-emergence and Response : The video was unearthed by BuzzFeed News
in 2019. John issued an apology, calling the video "stupid and tasteless" and expressing regret. Internet Archive & Availability
