GANGNAM STYLE

I'm not as far behind discovering GANGNAM STYLE as I was with LADY GAGA, since GANGNAM STYLE only came out this summer. It's by the Korean singer Psy, and has nothing to do with gangsters as I had feared. The title refers to the Gangnam district of Seoul, very upscale  with new wealth.  According to an AP piece on the area, an average apartment goes for $716,000. Psy's song mocks it in an very catchy way. The video at first looks odd and amateurish but it grows on you with repetition. Not quite an earworm, but I do enjoy listening to it again and again.

An explanation of the choreography helps. In an early scene Psy in in a stable where horses look out from their stalls on each side. His core dance move is the "horse dance," where the dancers assume a wide legged stance and  move  up and down as though posting on a trotting horse. The dancers alternate between holding the reins and twirling a lasso.  There are also children doing really bad dance moves. I'm not sure whether it helps to know that Psy deliberately searched for cheesy animal dance moves, considering a kangaroo or a panda. Imagining a panda doing the dance is insanely funny.

In the repeated line "Oppa Gangnam Style," Oppa is a term used by Korean women to refer to an older male friend or big brother. The song refers to a perfect girlfriend who knows when to be refined and when to be wild.

He sweetly sings about wanting "A girl who covers herself but is more sexy than a girl who bares it all."
 and being " A guy who has bulging ideas rather than muscle."

GANGNAM STYLE has multiple parodies--these may be the best :

 http://theweek.com/article/index/233651/gangnam-style-the-8-best-parodies-of-the-viral-video

BABY GANGNAM STYLE including mothers at a park who alternate between the sweet and less appealing aspects of parenting like picking up dirty diapers and scrubbing floors.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iheCrwQQlI
 
Also the US Merchant Marine Academy.
 http://www.newsday.com/long-island/towns/usmma-midshipmen-film-gangnam-style-parody-1.4130279

Gandalf style and My Little Pony also feature.

You can secretly dance to it--burns about 150 calories per half hour, if you can last a half hour without cackling.
 
----I don't want to be a sore winner, but I so wish I'd found this one before the election: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xuvir4_mitt-romney-style_fun