In what world is it ever OK to tell somebody how they should or shouldn’t dance?
Who cares if you move like Michael Jackson, or are more of a Solomon-dad-dancer-type; it is a form of expression, in which a person wants to feel happy, free and comfortable to just fucking go for it.
Let’s be honest, things got a bit weird a few years back when ravers developed a somewhat aggressive dislike towards anybody who shuffled.
For those who don’t know what shuffling is – it’s a style of 2-step dancing that has been around for decades; which made a huge comeback on dance floors around the U.K after electronic pop duo LMFAO released their tune, Party Rock Anthem, which included the lyrics “everyday I’m shuffling”.
Cringeworthy, but true.
At one point, the vendetta against shufflers became so serious that certain venues banned people from doing it; putting up signs and notices assuring people that frequent offenders would be removed.
You can accept a person being ejected from a venue if they were caught taking drugs or were verbally abusive to staff – but this was a completely serious message to people who danced in a certain way.
If you shuffle, you leave the premises, before other ravers turn on you. How fucking weird is that considering raves are supposed to be places of love and acceptance for all.
Throughout 2012 and 2013 it genuinely felt like an epidemic, with party goers developing a certain amount of snobbery towards it – avoiding specific events and DJs who attracted the “shufflers types”.
In 2017 it seems fair to say shuffling is dead.
Well done to those on the witch hunt, you can give yourself a huge pat on your sheep-like back. You have stopped people from enjoying themselves.
Of course, it was argued that the term “shuffler” was more of a dig at the type of person rather than the dance itself; the Huaraches wearing, Louis Vuitton man-bag donning, cheeky Nando’s lad…. who happened to shuffle.
Still, what’s wrong with that? If you don’t like that type of person, fine, but why prevent him from dancing how he chooses to.
Four years since the craze reached its peak; it’s been over a year since I last saw a person actually shuffling at a rave.
The lonely figure of a bloke in his mid-twenties absolutely going for it in London’s Ministry of Sound was both highly impressive and horribly sad in the same instance.
He was clearly a good dancer, but he represented an oppressed breed. He was the last man standing.
Within minutes he went back to marching on the spot – doing the sweating head-bob, which is no doubt a dance move that comes approved from everybody.
As a woman once shouted at an illegal acid house rave shut down by police, ultimately made into a documentary, “LET THE PEOPLE DANCE”.
I’ve always wondered if off-camera she went on to say “BUT ONLY IN A WAY THAT WE THINK IS ACCEPTABLE”.
RIP shufflers.
