 A 2018 GIF of a man doing the floss | |
| Etymology | Back-and-forth movement is similar to the use of dental floss |
|---|---|
| Year | 2010s–present |
| Origin | United States |
The floss is a dance and an Internet meme in which a person repeatedly swings their arms, with clenched fists, from the back of their body to the front, on each side. [1]
The name comes from the moves themselves, which involve "a lot of fast arms and hip swings as though using a huge, invisible piece of dental floss". [1]
An earlier instance of the dance being promoted on the internet was in a 2014 clip uploaded by the YouTube channel JStuStudios, run by content creators Justin Stewart and Andrew Scites. [2] Stewart and Scites have performed the dance, called "The Squeege" in televised appearances, such as The Meredith Vieira Show . [3] The earliest instance of the dance was published October 18, 2010 by the YouTube channel Ryan Mayall (MayAllLove13). [4] Videos of the dance on social media achieved viral popularity after 14-year-old Russell Horning, known as "the backpack kid", performed the dance in an August 2016 video. [2] Horning was invited to participate in a live Saturday Night Live performance of Katy Perry's song "Swish Swish" in May 2017. [5] [6] It has since become a trend among children and younger teens, and has been performed by celebrities in videos. The floss has been featured in The Simpsons , and in television shows airing on Universal Kids, Disney XD, and Disney Channel. [7] [8]
Flossing is featured in the 2017 video game Fortnite Battle Royale , developed and published by Epic Games, as a limited-time dance "emote" as a reward from the Battle Pass Season 2 that can be performed by the characters while playing. Flossing has become popular in schools due to the popularity of Fortnite [6] [8] and because of support from parents and administrators, as flossing can be seen as lacking the relative eroticism seen in other dance moves popular with young people. [9] In December 2018, Horning's mother filed a lawsuit against Epic Games for copyright infringement of the dance emote, the third such similar that Epic had seen. [10] Horning's suit against Epic resulted in Playground Games removing the dance emote in their 2018 racing video game Forza Horizon 4 via an update to avoid possible litigation against them. [11]