Crazytown

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

THE INTERNET IS FOREVER...so let’s VOGUE

By Lindsay Meck // karmeck360

More than twenty years ago, Shaun Sperling was just another

awkward Torah student from a Chicago suburb. Six days ago, Gawker made him an internet superstar with “Watch this Bar Mitzvah Boy Vogue Like a Man

.”

More than a million views and one Jimmy Kimmel interview later, Shaun Sperling himself, now a lawyer in Chicago, is surprised by the epic attention garnered by his leaked home video.

BUT HE’S COOL WITH IT!

“Once you Vogue, it never leaves you,” he told Jimmy.

Maybe the first half dozen times we watched Shaun’s video, we convulsed.

(#maybe)

Partially in fear of what videos might surface from our own pre-internet youth. Maybe a miscellaneous Brian McKnight karaoke cover from a Bar Mitzvah or an early ice show routine where we interpreted Sister Act in a nun’s robe until we stripped down to a sequined showgirl leotard. THESE ARE HYPOTHETICAL EXAMPLES!

Maybe we were embarrassed for Shaun? For being so painfully unaware of dance technique or the potential mockery he was inviting at such a young and vulnerable age. How much was he bullied about that self screen-printed Madonna emblazoned button-down?

But then it clicked for us...thirteen year old Shaun was just...LIVIN’ HIS LIFE!

He was using his 15 minutes of Judaic fame to celebrate his favorite artist in front of his friends and family. Perhaps what we are mislabeling as “Ultimate Public Humiliation” is actually pure, uncensored freedom of creative expression: a child proclaiming his identity to his community through movement.

Rather than laughing at Shaun, we should salute his sincerity and self-confidence. He makes it look easy to perform in front of all of those guests, which would rattle most adults let alone tweens. And he did his own choreo!

Don’t we all need to summon a little “Shaun” sometimes in our life? To let our bodies move to the music?

Well don’t just stand there, let’s get to it,
strike a pose, there’s nothing to it.