Daft Hands
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About
Daft Hands is a music video tribute to French electronic music duo Daft Punk's 2001 house dance single "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" featuring a pair of hands with the words from the song's title written on the fingers.
Origin
On October 13th, 2001, the song "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger", which sampled Edwin Birdsong's "Cola Bottle Baby", was released as a single by Daft Punk for the album Discovery. In 2009, a live version won a Grammy Award for Best Dance Recording. On October 11th, 2011, the music blog NME ranked the song at 132 in an list of "150 Best Tracks of the Part 15 Years."
On June 6th, 2007, Seattle-based illustrator Austin Hall uploaded a video titled "Daft Hands – Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" to his YouTube channel. According to the video description, it was recorded in one take without any post-production editing other than the words written on the introduction slide. In less than five years, the video received more than 53 million views and 175,000 comments, while being ranked at one point as one of the most viewed videos on YouTube in the "All Time" category.
Spread
On June 19th, 2007, the video reached the front page of the social news site Digg[7] in a post titled "Girl gives Daft Punk’s 'Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger' a handjob!" On August 30th, the video was posted on the entertainment blog Brooklyn Vegan.[11] On September 14th, Hall appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, where he performed the Daft Hands dance in front of a live audience.
On February 10th, 2008, Newgrounds[6] user PJJMDCC submitted a flash game titled "Daft Hands – Interactive", in which the player controlled a cartoon hand by pressing corresponding keys to mimic the original dance. On May 23rd, 2008, the alternative rock band Weezer uploaded the music video for their song "Pork and Beans", which included a reference to Daft Hands as well as other Internet phenomena.
On September 3rd, 2009, the Internet culture blog Urlesque[9] published an article listing Daft Hands as the 46th most iconic Internet video of all time. On March 29th, 2010, the news publication Time Magazine[4] listed Daft Hands as one of YouTube's 50 best videos of all time, mentioning that it had accumulated nearly 40 million views.
ROFLCon Appearance
On May 4th, 2012, Hall spoke on the "Life After The Meme" panel at the ROFLCon III Internet culture conference with Christian Lander (Stuff White People Like), Ben Schulz (Leeroy Jenkins), Kyle MacDonald (One Red Paperclip). During the panel, he revealed that he was given a job on the Cheezburger site Memebase[3] after making the Daft Hands video.
Notable Examples
Several other YouTubers uploaded their own Daft Hands videos, some of which used songs other than the original Daft Punk track.
Daft Bodies
On November 23rd, 2007, the official Daft Punk YouTube channel uploaded a one take video titled "Daft Bodies – Harder Better Faster Stronger", which featured two women dancing in their underwear with the "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" lyrics written on their bodies. The video accumulated over 14 million views within five years. On January 22nd, 2009, Urlesque[5] published a round-up of Daft Bodies imitation videos in an article titled "The 7 Best Daft Bodies – Half Naked Daft Punk Tributes."
Search Interest
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External References
[1] FrEckleStudios.com – Fr. Eckle Studios
[2] Carleton College – Daft Hands Does LA
[4] Time – YouTube's 50 Best Videos
[5] Urlesque – The 7 Best Daft Bodies – Half-Naked Daft Punk Tributes
[6] Newgrounds – Daft Hands – Interactive
[7] Digg – Girl gives Daft Punk's "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" a handjob!
[8] NME – 150 Best Tracks of the Past 15 Years
[9] Urlesque – The 100 Most Iconic Internet Videos #46 Daft Hands
[10] Carleton – Daft Hands Does L.A.
[11] Brooklyn Vegan – Daft Hands
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