How About That Thing?

The Cha Cha Slide is the worst fucking song ever recorded. End of sales pitch!

Yes, I know that’s probably not a professional way to start… Well, anything, really. Outside of one of those angry reviews from the mid-to-late 2000s that were all the rage (no pun intended), anyway. So fine, I guess I have to elaborate.

The Cha Cha Slide is, if absolutely nothing else, the bane of my high school years. Whether it be prom, post track conference banquet, or even just some small time school dance, there was a good chance in the early 2000s that you were going to hear this “song” at one point. And every single girl was going to flock to the dance floor to do it while the guys cringed and wished the DJ would play something from Disturbed or something. Yeah, kind of funny to look back and imagine a world where Disturbed was popular. Instead of being that band whose vocalist autographed bunker busters in the biggest fuck you to good taste imaginable. But I digress.

I use the term “song” very loosely when referring to The Cha Cha Slide. This is because in the grand scheme of things, it isn’t a song. It’s nothing more than some random dude calling out directions while a beat plays in the background. Hell, for all the shit I’ve talked about the rap genre throughout my life, and possibly even on this website, at least rappers make their shit rhyme.

Furthermore, it always felt like the guy who put this Cha cha Slide together just made this shit up on the fly. Like, the beat was ready, the mic was on… But he forgot his song that was supposed to go with it. So he just calls out random instructions like “Two hops two hops!” or “Charlie Brown!”. Like I’m supposed to understand what the latter of those examples even means.

I don’t hate dance music. At least, I don’t hate older dance music. I actually like that “Blue da ba da” thing Eifle 65 put out. I enjoy “What is Love” for a lot more reasons than because of that SNL sketch that eventually wore out its welcome. Hell, even The Electric Slide wasn’t without its charm. But those songs had effort put into them. The background music sounded good. The lyrics may not have been the most profound ever, but at least there was a point.

The Cha Cha Slide has none of it, and the fact it was as popular as it was, and apparently still is now, is something that baffles me to my core.

The one thing that brings me some degree of catharsis, though, is the counter measure a lot of the boys came up with a few years later.

I don’t remember how it got started anymore, but suddenly, most of the boys would follow every direction the guy gave out by shouting “WHAT!?” as loud as they could. By the time 2003 came around, the average Cha Cha Slide segment of any given dance would sound like.

“Cha Cha now, yall.”

“WHAT!?”

“Sliiiiide to the left.”

“WHAT!?”

“Sliiiiiiide to the right.”

“WHAT!?”

“CRISS CROSS!”

“WHAT!?”

“CRISS CROSS!”

“WHAT!?”

Etc.

No doubt, this phenomenon within a phenomenon was inspired by Stone Cold Steve Austin’s latter years, when “WHAT!?” was his big thing. I won’t bore you with the details… This time. Suffice to say, Stone Cold Steve Austin promos took on a bizarre new life with the audience shouting “WHAT!?” after every sentence.

The fact this carried over to my high school, and remained a thing for the better part of my junior, and both my senior years, really speaks to how popular “WHAT!?” was as a concept. It probably also spoke volumes about how many guys at my high school were Austin marks.

SIDE NOTE: Yes yes, I had to repeat twelfth grade. Shut up.

The “WHAT!?” phenomenon still persists in pro-wrestling to this very day. As does The Cha Cha Slide, apparently. Mixing and matching the two… Either that declined in popularity, or it was only ever exclusive to my high school. I’ll believe either one, honestly. But I still look back on it fondly. It made one of the worst things ever recorded somewhat more bearable.