Ciara Raises The Bar On Viral Dance Videos With "Level Up"

Remember 2013 when everybody was doing the "Harlem Shake"? As Forbes pointed out, Baauer (the DJ/producer behind the track) never made an official music video because the viral videos of schoolkids, teachers, parents and teenagers in masks all over the world did it for him.

Now Drake is in the same boat. This week, his track "In My Feelings" broke the weekly streaming record previously held by the "Harlem Shake" with 116.2 million US streams. Since Drake’s dad dance moves in "Hotline Bling", the singer was in need of some dance kudos and he got it courtesy of comedian Shiggy, who posted a video of himself on Instagram dancing to "In My Feelings" wearing a peach-coloured tracksuit and a happy-go-lucky smile, with the caption #Mood and the song’s lyrics "Keke: Do you love me?"

The video racked up six million views and kickstarted a movement, inspiring copycat videos all over the world from high-profile people including Will Smith, who took a drone up to the top of a bridge in Budapest to film his rendition. Like Baauer, Drake has yet to release an official video for the track, and it’s unclear whether he’ll be able to do the moves!

The downside to all this fun is that in Shiggy’s original, he’s dancing on a road at night, which has resulted in people jumping out of moving cars before doing the dance in their videos. Police have issued warnings calling the act "dangerous", "silly" and "reckless", and the footage of young people opening car doors to the beat and dropping out, screaming when they realise how fast the car is moving, is scary. Safety before likes, people.

Luckily, Ciara has stepped in and distracted the masses from "In My Feelings" with her new track, "Level Up", released last week. The track begins with Ciara saying, "Now remember what I told you, be your own boss, love yourself, get up and dance, level up." The singer followed up the video release, where she’s dancing like a boss and loving herself, by asking fans and fellow celebrities to post videos of themselves outlining what they plan to level up on (i.e. get better at/progress to the next level).

Serena Williams posted that the one thing she wanted to level up on was being good to herself, Janelle Monáe posted that she wanted to be more present, Kelly Rowland posted that she wanted to acknowledge what she’s grateful for and Missy Elliott posted that she wanted to spend more time with people who are more creative than her, so that she can learn from them.

In addition to sharing personal goals, people are posting copycat dance videos of Ciara’s choreography in the official video. Ever so slightly more difficult than the "Harlem Shake" and "In My Feelings", many of the dance contributions to "Level Up" seem to be by professional dancers. Our favourite (which is also the BBC’s favourite) is by dance teacher Kenny Clutch, who posted a video of himself dancing next to his 1-year-old son who is battling leukaemia, but still manages to vibe off his dad’s energy in a few little baby moves.

Enjoy some more high quality "Level Ups" below.