Like the sea of bounty it is, the Internet has belched up a wondrous hybrid of two top American spectacles: low-budget regional advertising and used cars for sale.
Say “hey” to Jeff from Priority Motorsports in Wichita, Kans., who has undertaken a rendition of “Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)” to help sell his cars. This is the video evidence. Watch, and cringe as you realize that with this fuel, the assertion that white people are atrocious dancers is fire that will never die.
Like many dance crazes before it—the Charleston, the Twist, the Dougie—the Whip/Nae Nae requires specific moves and demands its signature song. The “whip” is a car allusion: holding one hand out in front as if it were atop a steering wheel, with the other shimmying to the side. Following, the “nae-nae” is a kind of double-leg twist. To Silentó’s rap, the combo is repeated ad nauseum, with interludes of legs both “stanky” and “broke.”
Perhaps because he is not an approval-seeking teen, Jeff doesn’t adhere to the rules. His cover, “Pick out your whip/So you can nae-nae,” besides tearing tonal harmony asunder, is misinformed. One needn’t a whip in order to nae-nae: The whole point is mimicry, Jeff. Why can’t we remain in the world of play-pretend?
Dancewise, Jeff begins with only one mistake, nae-naeing over the “whip” lyric, and whipping during “nae-nae.” Unfortunately, his whip eventually devolves into a generic Dad-at-the-Dance shimmy, and his stanky leg, absent the loose creepiness of the best, reads as a wounded donkey kick. Jeff’s “broken leg,” a testament to ligamental flexibility when executed well, is more “Tony Little at the Club.”
After his vulnerable and frankly dynamic showing, Jeff butches back up. Snapping out of his hip-hop reverie, he points, John Wayne-like, at the camera. Priority Motorsports, he bellows. Of course, Jeff. We’ll remember forever.