Shufflers, and shuffling, have an underservedly bad reputation. It's all too easy to fire off a series of faux-pithy ripostes from the bar about those poor deluded souls who have the temerity to actually enjoy themselves in clubs or at festivals. Ha ha! Look at that man dancing! Look at those girls having fun! What a bunch of doofuses, we say, clutching onto our phones and our double vodka and lemonades for dear life.
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Fuck that. Shuffling is probably really, really fun. I've never shuffled because I find the idea of dancing in public, or in private for that matter, about as appealing as eating liquid cement day and night for a month. However, if I ever found myself finally letting go and using a dancefloor for it's intended purpose rather than as a space for firing off low performing tweets about other dancers or as somewhere to rest my coat and rucksack, I'd like to think that I'd use it to shuffle. If I tried hard enough I could be the next Shannice Em, or Puff the Houseman.That was until I saw these photos. The following photos are the saddest thing I've seen since Nic Tasker's photo from Secret Garden Party. These photos, photos I'll never be able to un-see, are photos of the shuffler at large. These are photos of solitary shufflers caught in the wild. And they make me feel odd. Here's exactly what they did to me.WHAT'S HAPPENING: Here we see the shuffler about to shuffle. At this moment in time, he's weighing up his options. The shuffle looks appealing and it's sure to grab everyone in the vicinity's attention, but that bottle of beer is pretty tempting too. The slightly rickety legs suggest impending movement, but its impending movement tinged with doubt. Is this the right thing to do? Should be let loose? He might make a tit of himself if he does. He might make a tit of himself if he doesn't. If moves everybody else might. Is it a risk worth taking? Is anything?HOW SAD DOES IT MAKE ME FEEL: A bit sad. More hesitant and slightly anxious than actually sad though.
PHOTO ONE: THE PRE-SHUFFLE All photos by Adrian Choa
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PHOTO TWO: SUNSHINE SHUFFLE, ACTIVATED
PHOTO THREE: FLIP IT AND REVERSE IT
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