CALL ME MAYBE

What does a singer/songwriter from Canada have to do with Baseball?  That is a good question and it all started back in 2012, that is why it is in the Blast from the Past section.  Carly Rae Jepson was born on November 21, 1985 and garnered attention on the fifth season of Canadian Idol in 2007 when she placed 3rd.  Her breakthrough came with her acclaimed single "Call Me Maybe" which was released in 2012.  That song reached number 1 in more than 19 countries and sold over 18 million copies.  So, it was a pop hit........ but Baseball?    Well that story starts with a college baseball team from Massachusetts.
Take the Harvard Baseball + choreographed dance moves + "Call Me Maybe"  and viral video and you get a crazy 2012 social media trend.   Starting off as a way to pass the time on a roadtrip, members of the Crimson baseball team decided to cover Carly Rae Jepsen’s hit song. Little did they know that their boredom would lead to stardom.

During their 2012 spring break trip, they had a long drive to one of their games, and they didn’t have much to do, and then "'Call Me Maybe' came on someone's iPod, and they started goofing off.  According to sophomore Steven Dill, the team often turned to dancing and singing in the car when they have a long road trip. The group started piecing together a routine, with everybody adding to the choreography. “Someone would suggest a move or idea, then we’d argue about it, and try it out,” senior Jeff Reynolds added. “It definitely helped us pass the time.”

Directed and filmed by senior Connor Hulse, the video was uploaded to Facebook and YouTube for their own entertainment. “It was really just meant to give our teammates in the other vans something to laugh about,” Reynolds explained. “Connor sat on it for a while, then posted it—it blew up, which was a huge surprise.”

Just four days after May 6, when the video was posted on YouTube, the Harvard baseball team has over two million hits, and enjoyed thousands of comments, retweets, and TV time exposing their choreography, lip-synching ability, and personalities. First, the team just posted the video, but when they saw it was going viral, once the team saw how popular the video was getting, they immediately posted a link in their YouTube page to the team's charity, an organization called Friends of Jacyln. It's a group that pairs little kids who have brain tumors with college athlete role models.

Back in 2010, the team adopted as one of their fellow players a South Shore boy named Alex, who was battling cancer.  "Once the video starting going viral, we thought why not give Alex some exposure, give Friends of Jaclyn some exposure,". "It's a great way to keep things in perspective.

The team received stories, shout-outs, and retweets from Sports Center ("@ SportsCenter: Guess it takes more than a van full of Harvard baseball players dancing to 'Call Me Maybe' to wake up their teammate"), the Huffington Post, Barstool Sports, Major League Baseball, ESPN analysts, Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, and Justin Bieber’s manager.  Even Good Morning America featured the team’s video.

 

 

Official Music Video

Original Havard Video

The boys lip sync and do synchronized arm and hand dance movements to Carly Rae Jepsen‘s upbeat and bouncy hit ‘Call Me Maybe.’

The video starts out with just a pair of players doing the hand movements and lip syncing in the back seat. Their numbers quickly swell, as more team members, who were hiding out of view of the camera, pop onto the screen. By this point, it’s a full on team of lip syncing dudes. They don’t smile. They don’t giggle. They are 100 percent serious in their mission to sing and dance to ‘Call Me Maybe.’

What’s really funny about this particular video is the dude who is sleeping in the back seat, completely unmoved or uninterested in the choreography unfolding next to him or around him. He’s either passed out or doesn’t care or doesn’t find this stuff interesting.  Synchronized dancing while lip syncing should be an Olympic sport.

I don’t know that there’s any video pure enough to unite a world which has become as divided as it’s seemingly ever been, but if there is, it’s this one. The Harvard baseball “Call Me Maybe” dance from its team bus is from a simpler time. It’s just good, wholesome content.  Once the Harvard video went viral, it started a trend of many baseball teams (college and travel) creating their own "Call Me Maybe" videos and then spreading out to other songs.  It didn't stop with just baseball teams.......... softball teams as well as other sports.

The kids today will never know the summer of “Call Me Maybe.” Carly Rae Jepsen made enough money off that one song to retire 10 times over. And that is maybe the best simple video on the internet. Just guys being dudes listening to 2012’s Song of the Summer — minus the guy who stayed asleep through the whole thing.

In an era where Disney just remakes every movie people have ever liked, this is the revival we actually needed.