He’s gone oversees to cover the war in Afghanistan, braved the wrath of Hurricane Sandy and even rang in 2013 sandwiched in between Kathy Griffin and Honey Boo Boo, but Anderson Cooper‘s most recent reason to be “horrified” took place at his own staff meeting.
The 45-year-old talk show host shared a hilarious video with his audience on Tuesday, Feb. 12, of various members of his staff doing the latest dancing craze, a revived version of the Harlem Shake, as he cringes on the couch.
“So this morning we have a morning staff meeting, where we’re going over what’s going to be on the show, and my staff decided to do this and I had no idea what was going on,” he prefaces the clip, “and I gotta say, I was horrified. It made me so uncomfortable.”
In the clip, Cooper’s staffer Lauren kicks off the dance by flailing her arms around as the song “Harlem Shake” by New York deejay Baauer comes on. The rest of her coworkers pretend not to notice, but Cooper is visibly perplexed.
Once the bass drops, however, the entire room erupts into chaos as the rest of the staff members attempt to keep time to the music with ridiculous masks on. The talk show host doesn’t join in the fun and instead beats people away with a couch pillow and rocks back and forth with his head in his hands.
“It’s like mommy and daddy are drunk!” he exclaimed about the viral video dance after the 30-second clip ended. “[It’s like] stop it, I don’t know what’s happening!”
The Harlem Shake meme, which recently burst onto the Internet earlier this month, is being likened to last year’s “Gangnam Style” and “Call Me Maybe” video crazes, which embedded themselves firmly into popular culture.
In the videos, one person begins dancing wordlessly as the bass-heavy song plays and the rest of the people onscreen feign ignorance. Then, once the beat drops about 15 seconds in, the video cuts to everyone in the room joining in with ludicrous dance moves and either masks or full-on costumes. The entire video usually lasts for just 30 seconds.
Late night talk show host Jimmy Fallon has already picked up on the viral sensation, as has rapper T. Pain.
