This post made me laugh, since Maria of "A Time to Dance" and I were discussing this exact same YouTube phenomenon a while back:
http://atimetodance.wordpress.com/2007/09/23/dance-crazes-and-youtube/

As for your questions... I don't think dance crazes are really all that big yet, certainly nothing like they were in the 50's. Every other song from the 50's had a "dance" to go with it. But I do think they may be on the upswing.

As for recent times, "Crank That" is the only fairly complex dance that goes to a specific song that I can think of. The only other recent song-specific dances I came up with were that obnoxious "cupid shuffle" song that turns up at wedding receptions and the Pepto Bismol dance that is aparently hotter than hot at middle school dances. And neither of those are particularly complex, nor widespread. (Though definately search YouTube for "Pepto dance" - it's disturbing just how many people will film themselves miming gastro-intestinal distress to music.)

I don't think there's a formula... Anything intended to be a party dance needs to be simple enough for drunk people do do, and the instructions probably need to be included in the words to the song. And the song itself needs to be catchy and easy to recognize as soon as the DJ puts it on.

"Crank That" is certainly catchy, but I don't think the dance is going to show up to much at wedding receptions. :) I think people like to film themselves doing it show off what they have done starting with the raw material of the choreography, then making it their own. The back-and forth of putting the instructions on YouTube, then inviting people to film themselves doing it gives people a sense of interaction with the artist and their creative process.

I have found in my six months experience on youtube, that the number one important thing to do with your uploads, is to choose an eye catching title, AND to put as much information in the section where you write about your video.

This is my number one viewed video on my six month old youtube channel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDpBTT7PZYg
This video has had
VIEWS: 246, 051
COMMENTS: 103
FAVORITED: 347 times

Listen guys, I am a NOBODY! But, I do have guts.

This video is titled:
"Ass Shakin' Good Morning"

Remember....it's the EYE CATCHING TITLES.

Also, the video icon helps tremendously.

EVERYTHING IS MARKETING FOLKS!!

Good luck.

May God Bless our efforts to shine the light of love and liberation in DANCE!

MUAH!
xoxox

ARTzy

Thank you Doug for swinging by the ITP Winter Show. After much debate and demand, I decided to compile two short videos with short excerpts of all the dance participants of both Winter Shows. I restarted the dance evolution for each day, so that each video starts with the first 10 people watching the original Soulja Boy video then the 11th-20th users would get a random video from 1st-10th videos. I hope everyone enjoys to results as much as I do.

http://nullobjects.com/blog/archives/4

Robert,

Thanks for update about your participatory dance project and links to your videos.

Natalia,

Sorry for delay in follow-up. Thanks for update about your previous coverage of this video.

I'm still curious when we'll see examples of "professional" dancers who perform on stage get their feet wet in the viral dance video craze. I haven't really seen examples of modern and other concert dancers try to to encourage others to replicate and upload their choreography.