Dancing Pallbearers, also known by a variety of names, including Dancing Coffin, Coffin Dancers, and the Coffin Dance Meme are a Ghanaian group of pallbearers who are based in the coastal town of Prampram in the Greater Accra Region of southern Ghana, although they perform across the country as well as internationally. They are locally referred to as Nana Otafrija Pallbearing and Waiting Service or Dada awu. The group initially gained worldwide attention through a BBCfeature story in 2017. In March 2020, the videos was paired with EDM song "Astronomia" by Tony Igy and gained popularity in FAIL edits. In late May 2020, a Coffin Dance remix video was shared by Donald Trump on his official Facebook page, which mocked a controversial statement made by Democratic rival Joe Biden. The footage also became part of an Internet meme in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020.
Origin
The Dancing Pallbearers are led by Benjamin Aidoo, who started the group as a regular pallbearer service. He later had the idea of adding choreography to their pallbearing work. Extra fees are charged for dancing with the coffin during a funeral. The Dancing Pallbearers first rose to prominence in 2017 when they were featured in a BBC News report. 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 reuploaded in YouTube where it received over 725,000 views.
Spread
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. In 2020, the meme was used to send a message around the world during in the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Since the trend, it has been popular in social medias and mostly used on TikTok.
In late March 2020, a YouTuber with the channel name "Syon" uploaded the video onto YouTube which started a trend on the Internet. In April, the group became the subject of a darkly comedicinternet meme when videos of people suffering various mishaps, followed by clips of the pallbearers dancing with coffins, were widely uploaded to Reddit, YouTube and TikTok. 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 or Lenka's "Trouble Is a Friend". Many uses of this meme are commonly associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, which was ongoing when the meme became popular.
In Brazil, the social media meme was brought to the streets, as a billboard image featuring the coffin dancers was displayed with the caption 'stay home or dance with us'. In May, the group released a video where they capitalized on the phrase, encouraging viewers to 'stay home or dance with us'.
Leaders of the Libertarian party in Georgia "Girchi" dressed up in traditional Georgian clothes – Chokha – and made their own version of the video.
In May 2020, US President Donald Trump shared an edited video of the dancing pallbearers carrying a coffin on his social media in response to a controversial remark by Joe Biden. In the edited video, Biden's campaign logo was superimposed on the coffin. Biden was Vice President under Barack Obama and is presently the presumptive Democratic candidate for President in the 2020 election.
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.
In Hong Kong, a company has started cashing in by moulding them into plastic figurines for sale.
They have become a symbol warning people to stay home during the pandemic as their videos are edited into memes to prevent people from behaviors exposing them to COVID-19 and urging them to stay indoors. Their videos have been also shared globally and garnered a strong following in countries such as Brazil, United States and China. Dancing pallbearers has been mentioned on Twitter 60,000 times in April.
