Changes: Getting Famous And Blowing Up Your Name

The way street dancers get their reputations nowadays is a complicated mess. We know from OG’s personal testimonies that reputable dancers got their street cred from battling and from word-of-mouth within the community. You’d earn your reputation by demonstrating your skill in a cypher. When you got called out, it was hard to back down with witnesses around. Crews popped up representing neighborhoods or cities whether you were from Carson, Wilmington, Orange County or Long Beach. Bboys and poppers aggressively defended their reputations and their belongings by battling each other.

In the 2000s, OGs have said that our current street dance scene is very different from what they remembered. Today, we have more judged contests than battles in cyphers. The party, communal vibe seems to have lessened in the present day compared to the past. And the presence of the Internet forums and online video sharing have warped the way new dancers get their reputations and blow up their names. While Internet forums have been helpful in reuniting older dancers as well as bringing new schoolers into a revived scene, the negative aspects have exponentially grown. There seems to be a disturbing trend developing where inexperienced new schoolers feel a subconscious need to post videos of themselves dancing before their technique has fully matured. They may feel that they need to receive critiques from informed sources in order to improve their technique. But often, it opens the door to flame wars, negative arguments, and a desperation to “get known” by posting their latest set online.

Maybe we need to start rethinking how we post our videos online. Anyone can post a video of themselves as long as they have a computer and Internet access. But if someone else posts a video of you, the chances are higher that they admire your skills and that you’re progressing. This isn’t an automatic correlation, but we often see the most highly skilled street dancers being recorded and posted online by other sources via Youtube. An alternate strategy is that we can cut back on all the video noise that we’re contributing online. To go truly underground means becoming almost invisible and limiting your visible presence at contests and cyphers. It certainly would add an air of mystery around yourself if you decided to become nearly invisible.

Now, we’re seeing dancers gaining notoriety simply by posting footage online. There’s an undercurrent of needing to get the most views on your video in order to get famous. This is a dangerous mentality that needs to stop. The reason is that it reduces aspects of our dance culture to being interpreted by a larger audience only on online video. Outsiders make judgements on our dance without getting the full experience of seeing it live. And we all know that Youtube videos aren’t always shot with the highest quality. This feeding of our desire to be seen, to get popular through high view tallies, and to market ourselves can grow out of control and become a massive self-absorption that could destroy our culture. We have to be cautious of how we present ourselves.