Having explored how the young psychedelic pop scene of Baltimore is giving the city a sense of colourful positivity and moving the city’s image away from the bleak images of The Wire, another US youth movement has also emerged to give young people a fun and attainable sense of achievement, community and hope

The Jerk movement is a new youth culture emerging this year from Los Angeles. Jerkin’ centres around talented groups of young urban dancers who often make their own beats. While the style of hip-hop is not very distinct, it is a lot more accessible than it’s main inspiration, the Bay Area’s ethereal hip-hop known as Hyphy. The name Jerk is taken from the fact that the dancing style is central to the culture. The term Jerk is itself one of the most used dances seen in the various YouTube videos, and consists of moving your knees in and out while keep your feet stationary and standing on your toes. Other moves are known as the ‘reject’ which is a backwards running-man, the ‘dip’ and ‘pindrop’ and are all accessible from the many YouTube instructional videos.

The dance style became popular firstly at parties and then really took off through YouTube. The movement has picked up so much pace that Jerkin’ duo New Boyz have been signed to a record contract by Warner. Their debut single ‘You’re a Jerk’ (above) has attracted over 21million views since May. The making of the official video had hundreds of locals turning out to be a part of the movement that was clearly beginning to get mainstream attention.

Jerk culture has been spreading around Los Angeles’ high schools and all-ages clubs for more than two years, but it’s because of “You’re a Jerk” that the music industry started paying attention. “You’re a Jerk” isn’t the first jerk song, but it was the first to get play on L.A.’s urban radio stations, the first to break through in non-local markets from Phoenix to Birmingham, Alabama, and the first beacon to other jerk music artists that fame really can extend beyond MySpace and house parties. It is not only the dance style that has been promoted via the online videos, however, as the Jerkin crews have their own style beyond the music and moves.

The Ranger$, who are the spokes crew for The National Jerk Association, have won many Jerk related competitions in California. They are all aged between 15 and 17 and their ‘Jerkin in Jerkville’ video, has garnered 3.5milion YouTube views since May. The Ranger$ are perhaps a better example of why Jerkin has taken off in such a positive way and become a cultural phenomenon. The lyrics of the songs, made by the young Jerk crew themselves, are all about wearing colourful skinny jeans, girls and their dance moves rather than any of the violent stereotypes typically associated with modern hip-hop. Beyond this still, the DIY nature of the video highlights The Ranger$ as a dance crew, a conscious element of how they formulated earlier this year. You could even say that the dance crew ingredient of Jerk culture is a return to the original 5 elements of hip-hop, which included break dancing. Graffiti, rapping and DJing are other the main elements yet street fashion and slang are often also included. The fact that Jerk culture includes most of these elements signals its importance beyond a style of dance & music, and into a movement.

- skinny jeans movment

It is no coincidence that the documentary chronicling the Jerkin Movement has emerged online rather than on MTV, which seems to have lost touch with emerging cultural movements associated with music. The internet has been key in the rise of Jerkin, not only in the spread of the DIY viral dancing videos, of which there have been some 35,000+ uploaded in the last 8 months, but in the creation of the culture in of itself. The aesthetic style mashes together various ingredients including checked shirts, skinny jeans, colourful and childish caps, t-shirts and even occasionally colourful mohawkes, with geek, skater and punk elements. This mash-up of style is symptomatic of the way culture is being democratized and disseminated because of the internet, in this case online access has allowed it’s young users access to a wide and varied view of hip-hop and culture before mixing it up and making it their own. Robert Randall, music editor of L.A Weekly notes that in scouring the history of hip-hop through internet, the positivty of Jerk culture is “like they’re dipping back and forgetting things like gangsta rap ever happened”. This view of Jerkin takes in the view of the film A Remix Manifesto, which we have already explored, that creativity is at it’s height via a large public domain from which to be influenced, which is internet is making possible.

In recent times however, many critics have suggested that this voracious merging of culture has resulted in a meaningless void that today’s young people exhibit. Examples of this meaningless culture are said to be Hipster’s wearing Keffiyehs while having no political meaning, and the styling of the metrosexual as an appropriation of gay culture with no meaning beyond itself. While the Hipster might be an example of how a young internet generation excitedly ate culture and spat out faddish content, Jerkin has more resonance with the people that are enveloped within it.

Now We Jerk - A Jerkin Documentary presented by the LA Weekly from Brilliant Comrades on Vimeo.

The spreading of Jerk culture on the internet was almost inevitable given it’s multi-faceted influences, yet the coming together of those fun and colourful influences also encouraged it’s spread in California before it became viral. Legacy of the New Boyz notes that before Jerkin emerged “people used to go to parties and get shot up, now they go to parties to jerk and have a good time”. This positivity competition to acquire fame via youtube views rather than drug deals is perhaps another reason that Jerk culture has taken off so quickly both online and physically. Yet it also exhibits the entrepreneurial and global perspective of its young dancers. “People were making jerkin’ music, but nobody was like doing anything with it” Legacy said. “We wanted to make it worldwide. This dance is crazy, and it got potential, so we wanted to make it worldwide. We made a jerkin’ song. We made ‘You’re a Jerk,’ which is like a double meaning. Jerkin’ is just having a good time, you just grooving. Some people ain’t capable of crumping. Their body can’t do all that. Everybody can jerk, my grandma be jerkin’. His 4-year-old brother be jerkin’. It’s just groovin’. It’s positive.” Young people now “think globally and act virally” as The New York times notes. With the other crews such as Action Figure$, LOL Kid$z, Pink Dollaz (who have already collaborated with M.I.A) and the Rej3ctz starting to gain national attention in America and get signed, it looks as though the young people of the Jerk Movement may create a lengthy and positive narrative for other young people to then digest, appropriate and then redistribute themselves online. Apparently Jerkin has already been spotted in Tottenham, North London. We await the videos on youtube.

Below are some Jerkin links to some of the dancing crews mentioned:

New Boyz

Ranger$

The Rej3ctz

Pink Dollaz

JHawk Productions

LoL Kid$z

Action Figure$