2020 / Video / Pandemic-era remix punchline
Coffin Dance
A bass drop, a hard cut, and Ghanaian pallbearers made every bad decision feel immediately final.
The original is off-site. HAHrchives preserves the story and a route back to it.
What happened
A setup suggests something is about to go wrong; the video then cuts to the pallbearers dancing in formation as the electronic track arrives.
Where it came from
The footage came from BBC News Africa’s 2017 profile of Ghanaian dancing pallbearers, whose choreographed coffin-carrying service is hired by families for funerals. In spring 2020, editors paired clips of imminent disaster and abrupt failure with the pallbearers and “Astronomia,” creating the Coffin Dance format.
Why it mattered
Coffin Dance turned an existing real-world performance into a global remix grammar, illustrating both the speed and the strange cross-cultural reach of 2020’s short-video internet.
How it spread
The punchline traveled through short-form edits, gaming clips, remixes, and pandemic feeds, with its rhythm making the format instantly legible even without shared language.
Keep going
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