Duane!

About

Duane! is a video clip taken from a 1989 direct-to-video film titled Barbie Dance Club in which a boy named Duane dances as his name is called out to the center stage. The clip went viral after it was introduced by the found-footage curation site Everything Is Terrible! in February 2009.

Origin

Barbie Dance Club was released to VHS in 1989. The clip featuring Duane was first uploaded to YouTube on December 23rd, 2006, by a YouTube account^[1] that has since been deleted. The video gained over 500,000 views before it was taken down. The clip was posted to Everything Terrible’s website on February 2nd, 2009, though as of June 2014, the original clip has been replaced with a duplicate version uploaded in 2011. The earliest video still accessible online was uploaded to Funny or Die^[2] by Everything Is Terrible! on August 30th, 2009 (shown below).

Spread

On November 15th, 2009, the video was uploaded to Ebaum’s World^[3]. On December 31st, 2011, Everything Is Terrible^[2] uploaded the clip to its YouTube channel, where it gained over 600,000 views in less than three years.

On October 19th, 2010, Everything Is Terrible!^[6] posted a video which features footage from an old commercial for the internet edited so a clip of Duane dancing was shown above the words “This is Internet.” The post now links to a video uploaded to Youtube on December 23rd, 2011, by YouTuber Commodore Gilgamesh.

Remixes

YouTuber Ben Cheshire^[5] has created several edited versions of the Duane video, replacing the original music with other songs and adding graphics. On July 4th, 2011, he uploaded an edited version of the video (below, left) which features cartoon character Nigel Thornberry dancing in front of Duane. As of June 2014, the video has gained over 10,000 views. On July 16th, 2011, he uploaded an edited version of the video (below, right) which replaced the original music with ‘Nu Thang.’ As of June 2014, the video has gained over 12,000 views.

Related Memes

So Bad It’s Good

So Bad It’s Good refers to a piece of pop culture, such as Duane!, the Rebecca Black music video ‘Friday’ (below, right), or the drama The Room (below, left) that becomes popular and enjoyable specifically because it’s so terrible.

Search Interest

External References