Mixing politics and dance
Smear campaign falls flat as clip only features congresswoman dancing
Trolls’ plan to shame US congresswoman who danced in a video backfires.
An attempt to discredit new US congresswoman and leftist poster child Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with a video of her dancing as a student backfired spectacularly, triggering eye rolls and a barrage of whimsical memes.
The 30-second clip of a younger OcasioCortez, now 29, strutting her stuff on the roof of a building quickly went viral on social media – but the troll attempt fell flat, with users rushing to praise rather than shame her.
“Well, @AOC is officially done. She’ll never recover from the world seeing her... (watches video) ...dancing adorably and having fun with her friends in high school?” tweeted the comedian Patton Oswalt, tongue-in-cheek.
The edited clip that began circulating widely on Thursday shows an upbeat Ocasio-Cortez twirling and hamming it up for the camera.
The Twitterverse later unearthed the full YouTube video posted eight years ago, when dance crazes took the Internet by storm.
The short was filmed at Boston University, and sees Ocasio-Cortez – who graduated from there in 2011 – join peers to pay wholesome homage to an iconic dance scene from the 1980s film The Breakfast Club, set to the French indie pop band Phoenix’s Lisztomania.
The trolling intended as a “gotcha” moment for the New York politician – who was sworn in to Congress on Thursday, becoming the legislative body’s youngest woman ever – instead saw social media turn it into a meme.
“Cannot wait for my enemies to post a video of me spinning around looking super hot with the shiny hair of youth and act like they just caught me breaking into the Watergate Hotel,” tweeted writer Nicole Cliffe of the flubbed smear attempt.
In response to the dancing video OcasioCortez on Friday posted a fresh clip of herself shimmying into her office on Capitol Hill, as the counterculture classic hit War plays.
“I hear the GOP thinks women dancing are scandalous,” she wrote. “Wait till they find out Congresswomen dance too!” — AFP