Several miners in Australia were fired from their jobs after filming a “Harlem Shake†video underground, a performance that the owners of the Agnew gold mine apparently considered unsafe, The Associated Press and Reuters reported.
Like thousands of others, the miners posted their video on YouTube. It shows eight miners wearing safety gear doing the convulsive dance. The West Australian newspaper quoted an unnamed worker who said at least 15 miners were fired, including some who wathed the dance but did not take part. The worker said the miners were only “having a bit of fun.â€
Barminco, the mine owner, was not amused. In a letter quoted by the paper, it said the stunt breached its “core values of safety, integrity and excellence.â€
The Harlem Shake is a dance song by a Brooklyn producer named Baauer that mixes a hip-hop beat, Dutch house synth riffs, a rap sample, animal noises and some sub-woofer bass sounds. It became the basis of a viral YouTube fad after an amateur comedian named Filthy Frank posted a dance video using the first 30 seconds of the track; thousands of others have pos! ted similar videos, from a Norwegian Army battalion to a group of Playboy models.
The craze drove hundreds of thousands of people to download and listen to Baauer’s song online, propelling it to the top of the Hot 100 chart, which now takes into account YouTube views and streaming services in its tally.
