If the rest of the world didn't think we were bonkers enough already, it turns out Australia is the only country in the world that does the Nutbush City Limits dance.
Woah woah woah. You mean the dance that no one remembers learning but is still somehow ingrained in our collective muscle memory? The dance that means every time we hear Tina Turner wail, "A CHURCH HOUSE, GIN HOUSE!" our legs immediately side-step? The dance that is mandatory at every Australian school disco, cringey family event, wedding reception, bar mitzvah, christening? The dance that made Birdsville sextuple in size when 2,000 people, including Nick 'The Honey Badger' Cummins (side note: still waiting on an apology for The Bachelor fiasco mate), break a world record?
Yep that one... Apparently, that's just us. No one else. And Twitter is shooketh.
Alright maybe you already knew. It re-entered our consciousness when 'So apparently no other countries do the Nutbush' blew up on Reddit last year and Sydney Morning Herald took a deep dive into the dance's origins. It's back in the zeitgeist this week though, thanks to a video circulating on Twitter of Mitt Bosley (originally uploaded by @yovrelovely that has already amassed almost half-a-million views in a week), and it's got us wondering, like, what does everyone else do? Just sit and nod politely? Clap along out of time?
Americans on Twitter are asking if we are okay. They're claiming the Cha Cha Slide is superior (wrong, it's not even the same ballpark). There are bulk stories of Aussies abroad busting out the moves in bars to bewildered stares. It's got us shouting, "See we do have culture!"
You can't really blame our foreign friends for the confusion to be honest. Even we don't really know how it started. Imagine just for a second, the sheer horror of moving to Australia in primary school and having no friends, only for a mob of nine-year-olds to break out in sync to the dance because as it turns out, it's actually part of the curriculum?! That's the stuff of nightmares folks.
I guess hats off to the education board for teaching socialisation and motor skills in one neat Tina Turner-sized package but it's about time we eradicated the fear. If we learnt anything from Helen Lovejoy it's that "won't somebody please think of the children"!
Because of this, moving forward we now strongly suggest the next time you go overseas, you teach the dance to a group of bemused locals and help us #MakeTheWorldNutbush. Knowledge is power. The Nutbush truth will set you free.
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