There's this thing that happens on the internet, maybe you've seen it...
Someone makes a short video, an explainer with quick, punchy sentences, or maybe remixes a meme with big, expressive hand movements, and, just like that, a complex and nuanced topic becomes more accessible to a mass audience.
The most obvious version of this phenomenon can be seen in those short sidewalk or living room dance videos aimed at going viral on TikTok, with lots of cultural appropriation involved (if you need a reference, Khalil Greene breaks it down with examples).
As an art form, dancing has a whole history, context, and set of perspectives, and street dance is a subset that tends to be more improvisational. In a lot of ways, it creates culture which more formal dance than responds to.
There is something that stands out: when you look at these clips, particularly the ones that go viral, a big part of the job of these dancers is to fit their moves into a 9:16 frame, which is the standard vertical video size for TikTok and other mobile-focused video apps.
The importance of "you first"
Something I don't talk a lot about is that until early high school my family survived on section 8 housing and commodity food. Some people may recognize this can, but if you don't the tl;dr is it's the least appealing part of any commodity food box, whether you eat pork or not.
There was also a "Beef With Natural Juices" with a similar level of visual appeal. But, when you live below the poverty level...what you get is what you work with.
Since my parents were first and second generation immigrants that started over, we didn't have any wealth to speak of.
That meant that when things went badly (and when you're poor nearly anything unexpected goes badly) we were at a high risk for being on the street. My parents hid this from us, but it was present in all sorts of ways.
For example, when I was 11 or 12 a neighbor's dog chased me and I broke my arm hopping a fence.
We had no health insurance and my accident nearly destroyed our family, although I didn't know it at the time. I just thought getting a Raiders cast was cool, which, fortunately the doctor said no to because he knew that wouldn't be safe in the neighborhood we lived in.