Jerking and Getting "Geeked Up"

Okay. Here we obviously have a reaction to the violence and negativity of the last 20 years or so of hip hop, and also an attempt to be sexy and fresh. We have a stylized, repetitive dance. So far so good. The New York Times wrote about jerking back in November of 2009, which probably means that the trend is passe at this point.

The music is, one is tempted to say, pretty bad, pretty lacking in groove. But the kids like it, and it does have a certain something. One thing that seems worth noting: this New Boys tune has basically no musical bottom end at all (it does have some sort of subwoofer-rumbling "doom doom doom" sound that you can hear at times if you slap on headphones, but there's nothing resembling a melody) but *it sounds kind of good over shitty computer speakers* and that's where most people are going to be listening to it. The tune by Swagg Kidz, below, has a better groove: the bass uses two whole notes.

Jerking musicians use the term "geeked up" a lot, which seems to be a play on the drug culture term "geeked up," which Young Jeezy used in a tune. I think "geeked up" here is probably a little bit mixed in with the mainstream meaning of "geek" as a nerd or a dweeb, since the Jerking trend overtly invokes a kind of faux-innocent middle-Americanicity.