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Video: A New Twerking World Record Was Just Set In Herald Square
By
Scott Heins
Published Sep 25, 2013
Modified Sep 25, 2013
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Photo by Scott Heins
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By
Scott Heins
Published Sep 25, 2013
Modified Sep 25, 2013
Share
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You may have heard earlier today that Big Freedia had plans to set a new world record for most people twerking at one time and in one place. At 12:15 this afternoon in Herald Square she made good on that claim, with the help of over 300 twerkers.
Big Freedia led a crowd that brought together hip hop kids, well-dressed businessmen, over-eager tourists, and even a couple of gray-haired ladies who looked a lot like our moms. Clearly, twerking is a populist movement. Twerking belongs to no one; twerking belongs to all of us.
The crowd at Herald Square was divided by barricades into twerkers and onlookers as participants were given a wristband, tallied by Guinness World Records staff (Big Freedia wasn't fooling around here) and handed a flyer that outlined specific rules for what would qualify as an acceptable twerk. At this point people could be overheard saying "Have you been training for this?" and "Pace yourself, it's a marathon not a sprint." Crowds grew steadily until a quarter past noon, at which point everyone got what they came for...
Despite constant shameless plugging by Big Freedia for her new show on Fuse, and the inescapable jostling that comes with any big crowd, the actual moment of record-setting twerking was a pretty positive and genuine moment. After all, what's wrong with a big crowd of people blasting hip hop and getting weird on a Wednesday afternoon?
Minutes after the the twerking ceased, reps from Guinness presented Big Freedia with a comically oversized framed certificate and confirmed that those on hand had set a new Twerking World Record (which begs the question, there was already an old Twerking World Record?). The final booty-shaking count, we were told, was 320.
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big freedia
twerk
twerking
we did it
world records that matter
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Scott Heins
Scott Heins is a freelance photo and video journalist based in New York City, and a frequent contributor to Gothamist + WNYC. His work often centers around labor rights, housing, and policing. In 2018-2019 he traveled to four states while covering a wave of public school teachers strikes, with work featured in The New York Times, The Intercept, Getty Images, Splinter, and Bloomberg Photos. Scott is a dues-paying member of the National Writers Union's Freelance Solidarity Project.
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