The NYT has a front-page profile of "jerking," the new dance move that originated in LA and is now 'sweeping the nation.' Here's the requisite video: The photos are great but as usual, the NYT's attempts at chronicling youth fashion are hilarious. No one explains cool better than a dance historian:

Seen in formal terms, said Sally Sommer, a dance historian who teaches at Florida State University, jerking may merely be a cousin to the “lambada or the twist.” It is certainly, Ms. Sommer said, less physically demanding than krumping or vogueing or the other highly skilled and innovative urban forms of dance. But the lambada was a fad. The twist was a fad. And jerking, its adherents say, has a cultural resonance that goes beyond the Reject and the Tippy Toe.

They go on to quote a music video director, the music editor of LA Weekly and one of the stars of the jerking movement. Maybe they should realize the irony inherent in trying to describe the new cool movement to a nationwide audience.

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