Gratuitous Dancing Baby Video

Must be something in the water in Brazil. What is it with all the weird baby videos we see from that part of the world? Here's another, spotted by Tara McGinley at Dangerous Minds.

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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phlavor

I think it’s a rash.
Ugly Canuck

Wasn’t there a wave of UFO sightings in Brazil in recent years?
More than co-incidence?
You decide!
El Stinko

That’s no baby. Clearly this child, and the smoking baby from Indonesia, are actually imps from hell in child form, up from the underworld to celebrate the End of Days now that BP has opened the gates of hell.
fungstyle

whether he’s 2 or 6 or 10, this kid is more proof that brazilians have hip shaking *in their genes*. i couldn’t dance like that if i trained for a year. amazing.
AnneH

To answer your question, Xeni-

“Brazilians are affected from birth by the Samba.

As an example of this attachment, parents bring their infants and children to balls in carnaval costumes, generation after generation. Kids learn the Samba rhythm as early as in middle school, and adolescents soon grow up and associate with samba-schools.”

(Warning – NSFW naked statue on float pic at link)
http://www.brazilcarnival.com.br/culture
Sekino

I don’t know any Brazilians, but if they’re anything like Caribbeans people, dancing is just a normal part of having a good time.

I have a friend from Barbados and his girlfriend is from Haiti. At parties, they don’t step on the dance floor, they burn it to ashes. They also make the rest of us look like we’re stomping around in body casts…
cjp

Not bad, but if he wants this to go viral, he’ll have to take up smoking.
zunjine

I keep looking for signs that this has been manipulated because that’s just freakishly coordinated for a child so young. There are about a dozen distinct dance moves there!

I disagree with the idea that any of this is in any way sexual or innapproriate for a child to perform. Your hips aren’t just the place where you keep your genitals you know! A child wouldn’t associate hip thrusting with sex. To him it just feels good to dance that way. Maybe we could all do with learning a thing or two from this kid.
Anonymous

Michael Jackson has been reincarnated in Brasil.
MrsBug

They put rhythm in the water down there, baby!! Boy’s got some moves!
IronEdithKidd

That’s funny and adorable. This little one is probably just shy of 18 months.

Anon@13: The devil is everywhere the true believe looks for him.
A New Challenger

I think it’s the world’s way of celebrating the blessed union of Calista Flockhart to Indiana Jones.
Anonymous

I remember when my 1st 2 nepehews were this age and we tried to teach them to shake their booties. They were both so cute, but to me this Brasilian baby shows how most of the children there are sexualized way earlier then most of the children here in the USA. I still think it’s cute, to see a dancing baby, but I don’t know if this dance is so appropriate. Am I crazy?
IamInnocent

Lots of coordination and balance for someone who can’t control one’s sphincters. :D

Too adult to be cute but great nonetheless.
DrPretto

Asian Baby sings Hey Jude
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKRJWjkzX5A
Jac

That description sounds xenophobic in a way that’s not characteristic of you, Xeni. Perhaps you mean “amazing” or “funny” or “talented” baby videos…not “weird”?
osmo

Naw thats adorable – the only reason you see the hip moves he/she is doing is because you link them up with adult sexuality – its just a dance :)
Anonymous

The floaty-heads make these things even more disturbing.
alllie

I don’t think that child is a baby. I think he’s 5 or 6 and has been put in a diaper to make him look younger.
- Xeni Jardin
  
  I think you may be correct.
  - Felton
    
    Baby or not, I think I just got served.
- DelicateFlower
  
  Five/six year olds are much leaner than this kid, and have a different head-to-body proportion. Comparing him to my kid, I’d say he’s about 2 1/2.
- caesar female
  
  That looks like a baby to me-the head to arm ratio, the goofy nearly cognizant look on his face. 5 and 6 year olds are much more elongated, their heads are not so bobblehead sized, their faces show evidence of thoughts and desires to which you are not privy. I’ve raised 4 kids, I’ve been around hundreds of them over the last 15 years and my first guess is that kid is as young as 18 months, I would have guessed 2 because he’s pretty stocky but the face reads younger.