What has the world come to? Every award show on T.V., every video on Youtube or Vine, is being taken over by the “Twerk Team”. There seems to be more and more people wiggling their bums and twerking is soon becoming a viral sensation.

This “dance form” is taking the world by storm in all different forms of media that even your 80-year-old grandmother probably knows how to shake it. It has been overly exposed so much that the esteemed Oxford Dictionary felt it appropriate to add ‘twerking’ to the English dictionary. They defined it as a “dance to popular music in a sexually provocative manner involving thrusting hip movements and a low squatting stance.”

Now that Oxford Dictionary claims it is a real word, does it mean that we can use ‘twerk’ in our essays? No, in fact, any form of ‘twerk’ should never be used again.

This phenomenon needs to stop. The dance is inappropriate and downright degrading towards women. This dance is meant to attract men for all the wrong reasons. Young girls think it is okay to post videos of them “twerking” because they see their idols shaking it on stage and in music videos. What kind of message is twerking sending about our generation?

It is not exactly clear where twerking originated, but one thing is for sure: it didn’t start with Hannah Montana shaking what her mother gave her at the VMA’s. According to an Oxford Dictionary blog, “What is the Origin of ‘twerk’?,” the earliest usage of the word is in the 1993 song, “Jubilee All” by DJ Jubilee.

All aspects of twerking became extremely popular in the world of pop culture, with multiple popular songs glorifying the dance, such as “Twerk It’’ and ‘‘Bubble Butt.” Miley Cyrus isn’t the only celebrity on the Twerk Team. Beyoncé has been shaking it since Destiny’s Child and Nicki Minaj might as well be crowned Twerk Queen. Even One Direction member Naill Horan shook his Irish booty on stage at one of his concerts.

Not all celebrities have jumped on the twerk train. Celebrities’ disapproval of the dance has ignited dissaproval via Twitter from celebrities such as Jay Z and Demi Lovato.

In some instances, twerking videos are pretty hilarious, especially those that make fun of the dance. But enough is enough. Twerking is overseen and overdone and at this point, completely predictable.
So ladies, and those few gentlemen, please do society and this generation a favor and leave twerking alone. It just makes you look like a fool.