Dancing, eh. What's that all about? We're often told that people go to nightclubs to dance but, honestly, who actually dances anymore? Oh, right. it's everyone except us because we're moody fuckers who don't know how to have any fun.What we prefer doing is standing on the sidelines, watching you lot having fun, and then going home and making pithy notes on the fun other people have. And that's exactly what we did her. So, without further ado, here's every dance move we'll see you pull this weekend.
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Gun Fingers
The easy thing for me to do here would be to go in on every middle to upper class dweeb from Chichester, who in the belly of a darkened room suddenly lowers his flat peak, presses his index and middle fingers together, and raises them in empty intimidation. But I'm not going to, because as questionable as it might be, we've gotten ourselves to a point where our index and middle fingers do it automatically. We barely have a choice. The gun finger has become a reflex. Whether you've been reppin UKG since 2001, or the word "garage" simply makes you think "Ford Fiesta", as soon as that BPM raises, so does your fleshy automatic.
LOOKS LIKE: Over-gassed and/or problematic.Double Gun Fingers
The double gun finger is a slightly more refined older brother to the single gun, normally associated with bassier tunes. The guns will be held closer to the chest, and stabbed out at rhythmic intervals. A bit like Clint Eastwood in pair of DuFFs.
LOOKS LIKE: As above, times two, plus dubstep.The Boiler Room
You hold that beer. You hold onto that beer like it's the mast of a sinking ship and a wet, wild North-Atlantic wind is curling around your skinny frame, trying with all the might of mother earth to carry you away. You hold onto to that beer, your body completely stoic, your eyes fixed forward, your head gently bobbing like a rubbing duck on the surface of a freshly run bath. And whatever you do, don't fucking smile.
LOOKS LIKE: This…
The easy thing for me to do here would be to go in on every middle to upper class dweeb from Chichester, who in the belly of a darkened room suddenly lowers his flat peak, presses his index and middle fingers together, and raises them in empty intimidation. But I'm not going to, because as questionable as it might be, we've gotten ourselves to a point where our index and middle fingers do it automatically. We barely have a choice. The gun finger has become a reflex. Whether you've been reppin UKG since 2001, or the word "garage" simply makes you think "Ford Fiesta", as soon as that BPM raises, so does your fleshy automatic.
LOOKS LIKE: Over-gassed and/or problematic.Double Gun Fingers
The double gun finger is a slightly more refined older brother to the single gun, normally associated with bassier tunes. The guns will be held closer to the chest, and stabbed out at rhythmic intervals. A bit like Clint Eastwood in pair of DuFFs.
LOOKS LIKE: As above, times two, plus dubstep.The Boiler Room
You hold that beer. You hold onto that beer like it's the mast of a sinking ship and a wet, wild North-Atlantic wind is curling around your skinny frame, trying with all the might of mother earth to carry you away. You hold onto to that beer, your body completely stoic, your eyes fixed forward, your head gently bobbing like a rubbing duck on the surface of a freshly run bath. And whatever you do, don't fucking smile.
LOOKS LIKE: This…
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The "I'm Not Really Dancing It's Ironic"
This whole clubbing and dancing thing is a bit above you, so instead you'll spend the evening basically dancing like everybody else, flailing your arms around and pointing your feet in different directions, except you will do it all with a smug, upside down smile. Why? Because you are above it all. This is silly. Anybody who is actually enjoying themselves is just a bloody druggy. Can't we all just have a laugh? Good lad.
LOOKS LIKE: The guy at school who was friends with your PE teacher.The Friend Point
The whole point of going out is to be with your mates, and what better way to acknowledge that than to spend the evening pointing at your them! The big tune has just dropped, the one your played fourteen times during your pre-drinks, so now you are going to pull a faux-turnt expression and point at all your mates, over and over again, the other hand precariously sloshing WKD all over the floor, until the end of the track. Then the next one comes on. Rinse and repeat.
LOOKS LIKE: The physical incarnation of Phats & Small's "Turn Around".Big Fish, Little Fish, Cardboard Box
Saw you in the club last week mate. Saw you and your best mate and the girl he's seeing and her mate, and you were stood there, weren't you, mate, you were stood there with your bottles of beer and your school shoes on and your hair gel and you finished your beer and you started doing the "big fish, little fish, cardboard box" dance and you thought it was funny but no one was laughing and I saw you, mate, I saw you sneak into the toilets and I followed you and I heard you sigh deeply and I heard you mutter, "fuck this, fuck all of this," to yourself and you didn't think anyone heard, but I did mate, I heard.
LOOKS LIKE: You, mate.
This whole clubbing and dancing thing is a bit above you, so instead you'll spend the evening basically dancing like everybody else, flailing your arms around and pointing your feet in different directions, except you will do it all with a smug, upside down smile. Why? Because you are above it all. This is silly. Anybody who is actually enjoying themselves is just a bloody druggy. Can't we all just have a laugh? Good lad.
LOOKS LIKE: The guy at school who was friends with your PE teacher.The Friend Point
The whole point of going out is to be with your mates, and what better way to acknowledge that than to spend the evening pointing at your them! The big tune has just dropped, the one your played fourteen times during your pre-drinks, so now you are going to pull a faux-turnt expression and point at all your mates, over and over again, the other hand precariously sloshing WKD all over the floor, until the end of the track. Then the next one comes on. Rinse and repeat.
LOOKS LIKE: The physical incarnation of Phats & Small's "Turn Around".Big Fish, Little Fish, Cardboard Box
Saw you in the club last week mate. Saw you and your best mate and the girl he's seeing and her mate, and you were stood there, weren't you, mate, you were stood there with your bottles of beer and your school shoes on and your hair gel and you finished your beer and you started doing the "big fish, little fish, cardboard box" dance and you thought it was funny but no one was laughing and I saw you, mate, I saw you sneak into the toilets and I followed you and I heard you sigh deeply and I heard you mutter, "fuck this, fuck all of this," to yourself and you didn't think anyone heard, but I did mate, I heard.
LOOKS LIKE: You, mate.
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The House Twat
While techno has long had the fist pump, house has never quite found the same go-to hand gesture. Instead it has been forced to struggle along with a variety of flappy, celebratory, wavy, army, handsy, thumbsy wobbles. From this messy debris has emerged the house twat. Brightly coloured adidas wind-breaker on, munching on those chunky piano breaks, sunglasses on inside, hands out-stretched, arms stabbing up into the sky completely out of time.
LOOKS LIKE: An Evangelical Christian with a slight gurn on.Fist Pump
Fist pumping gets a bad rep, and we'll never understand why. Human beings are hardwired to fuck, shit, and fist pump. That's just basic stuff. Ask a vicar. Ask Richard Dawkins. Ask anyone and they'll say the same. "Humans, yeah, that's what we do: we're born, we pay taxes, we shit, we moan about there being nothing on telly even though we have the whole Sky package, we get the odd shag, we die, and we fist pump every single time we hear a kickdrum in a nightclub." You can't argue with human nature.
Looks Like: Life itself.Transcendence
I know you're going to laugh, but you know what? Tonight, I'm having a bit of a moment. The drugs have worked, the music has built up slowly and carried me onto a whole other celestial plane. I'm flying, I'm actually flying. My eyes are shut fast now. Maybe people are looking. Maybe my friends are nudging each other, but you know what? I don't care. I'm flying. I'm pursing my lips together, my brow is furrowed, my hand is like a politician's during a speech, delicately posed and dropping with the beat. This is a moment.
LOOKS LIKE: A very shy middle-aged man ejaculating.
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The faux-vogue
Last week Sophie from your postmodern poetry seminar took you back to hers for a coffee. She turned her laptop on. She headed to YouTube. You flinched slightly, recoiled inside. You put on a false smile for her. It can't be that bad, you told yourself, whatever she puts on now can't be that bad. At worst it's a video of James Corden miming an R&B song with Alan Sugar or someth…no, it's an FKA Twigs video. Sophie's now voguing for you. You feel anything you ever felt for her vanish in an instant. You leave. The night after, at the student union, you see her, there, alone, framing her own face. She's voguing and you wish Paris had burnt itself out.
LOOKS LIKE: Cultural appropriation.Trap Hands
You are so turnt. You are TU. No, scratch that. You are TTU. Tonight is lit. This 170 BPM Rihanna remix is LIT. You are double cupping. On the sauce. The sizzurp. Well actually it's Jack Daniels and Coke, but let's call it sizzurp cos we are TURNT. Then, that beat rattles to a crescendo, and you wild the fuck out. Your arms bow into right angles and begin recklessly flapping in and out, the spirit of modern hip-hop fused with modern electronic music is rushing through your veins.
LOOKS LIKE: That thing chickens do when farmers hold them upside down by their ankles.The Dad
Not to sound like Peter Kay, right, but dads, yeah, don't dads dance funnily when they've had a few at Aunty Tracy's second wedding? Dads, right, they dance funnily. They dance like you'd imagine dads dancing — that's how dads dance. Imagine it, right, a dad, dancing. Your dad, right, but he's dancing. Think about that. Draft that mental image. That's you. That's how you dance every time you try and dance. For those panick-stricken thirty seconds a year you put your phone away in the club and let loose, you look like your fucking dad, except your dad's got the decency to realize that trying to be cool is beyond pointless. Look at you, with your snazzy new t-shirt on, dancing like a fucking dad.
LOOKS LIKE: Your dad. Dancing. Your dancing dad.Get those dancing shoes on, folks!
Last week Sophie from your postmodern poetry seminar took you back to hers for a coffee. She turned her laptop on. She headed to YouTube. You flinched slightly, recoiled inside. You put on a false smile for her. It can't be that bad, you told yourself, whatever she puts on now can't be that bad. At worst it's a video of James Corden miming an R&B song with Alan Sugar or someth…no, it's an FKA Twigs video. Sophie's now voguing for you. You feel anything you ever felt for her vanish in an instant. You leave. The night after, at the student union, you see her, there, alone, framing her own face. She's voguing and you wish Paris had burnt itself out.
LOOKS LIKE: Cultural appropriation.Trap Hands
You are so turnt. You are TU. No, scratch that. You are TTU. Tonight is lit. This 170 BPM Rihanna remix is LIT. You are double cupping. On the sauce. The sizzurp. Well actually it's Jack Daniels and Coke, but let's call it sizzurp cos we are TURNT. Then, that beat rattles to a crescendo, and you wild the fuck out. Your arms bow into right angles and begin recklessly flapping in and out, the spirit of modern hip-hop fused with modern electronic music is rushing through your veins.
LOOKS LIKE: That thing chickens do when farmers hold them upside down by their ankles.The Dad
Not to sound like Peter Kay, right, but dads, yeah, don't dads dance funnily when they've had a few at Aunty Tracy's second wedding? Dads, right, they dance funnily. They dance like you'd imagine dads dancing — that's how dads dance. Imagine it, right, a dad, dancing. Your dad, right, but he's dancing. Think about that. Draft that mental image. That's you. That's how you dance every time you try and dance. For those panick-stricken thirty seconds a year you put your phone away in the club and let loose, you look like your fucking dad, except your dad's got the decency to realize that trying to be cool is beyond pointless. Look at you, with your snazzy new t-shirt on, dancing like a fucking dad.
LOOKS LIKE: Your dad. Dancing. Your dancing dad.Get those dancing shoes on, folks!