Dancing Pallbearers

The Dancing Pallbearers are led by Benjamin Aidoo, who started the group as a regular pallbearer service in 2003.[7][8] He later had the idea of adding choreography to their pallbearing work. Extra fees are charged for dancing with the coffin during a funeral.[9] The Dancing Pallbearers first rose to prominence in 2017 when they were featured in a BBC News report.[10] The third video, which depicted pallbearers accidentally dropping a coffin during their dance, was first posted by Facebook user Bigscout Nana Prempeth on May 2, 2019 and gaining over 2,900 reactions, 4,600 shares and 350,000 views in one year, and then Matthew "DigiNeko" Ordrick uploaded it in YouTube where it received over 300M views.[11]

The video gained significant popularity on TikTok as a punchline for FAIL clips in a manner similar to To Be Continued and We'll Be Right Back memes, implying that the person in the FAIL video has died. For example, on March 6, 2020, TikTok account Trickshots posted a version of the meme that received over 2.9 million views and 237,000 likes.[6] In 2020, the meme was used to send a message around the world during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.[12] Since the trend, it has been popular on social media but mostly used on TikTok.[13]

Pallbearers in Nigeria displaying different dancing skills with a casket on their way to a burial site

• In late March 2020, a YouTuber Matthew “DigiNeko” Ordrick uploaded the video to YouTube which started a trend on the Internet. In April, the group became the subject of a darkly comedic internet meme when videos of people suffering various mishaps, followed by clips of the pallbearers dancing with coffins (implicitly the victims of the preceding clips), were widely uploaded to Reddit, YouTube and TikTok.[14] The clips are generally paired up with the song "Astronomia" by Russian musical artist Tony Igy and remixed by Dutch duo Vicetone, although others use either "You Know I'll Go Get" by DJ Haning and Rizky Ayuba (a remixed version of Enrique Iglesias's song "Finally Found You") or Lenka's "Trouble Is a Friend".[15] Many uses of this meme are commonly associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, which was ongoing when the meme became popular.[16]
• In Brazil, in May 2020, the city government of Caldas Novas, in the state of Goiás, installed two billboards showing the coffin dancers and the caption "stay at home or dance with us", to encourage social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil.[17][18] Soon after, the group released a video where they capitalized on the phrase, encouraging viewers to 'stay home or dance with us'.[19]
• Leaders of the Libertarian party in Georgia "Girchi" dressed up in traditional Georgian clothes – Chokha – and made their own version of the video.[20]

• In Colombia and Peru, policemen imitate the group's dance carrying a coffin on their shoulders, encouraging the community to stay home to stem the spread of the Coronavirus.[21][22]
• In Hong Kong, a company has started cashing in by molding them into plastic figurines for sale.[23]
• In early October 2020, the meme experienced a revival on social media following the White House COVID-19 outbreak, in which Trump himself was tested positive for COVID-19.[24]
• An easter egg in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War references the meme.[25]

• Jazz funeral