The Perils of Internet Videos
Kat was browsing through videos, flipping through her phone and putting the videos on her TV, just zoning out on her couch in her pajamas when she stumbled on a dance instruction video. She decided to just let it play. The perky instructor bounced on her heels talking about some old-fashioned dance and Kat was just zoned out. But as she watched the instructor, something about it made her decide to give it a try. She stood up and took a few steps in time with the instructor.
She was surprised at how easy it was to keep pace with the instructor, even if it was a basic back and forth step. She stepped forward a little more and caught sight of the mirror at the end of the hall, and was looked at herself. She had a surprisingly fluid motion as she followed along with the video.
“Wow, I can really move. Who knew?”
However, she was tired, and sat back down on the couch. She tried to sit down on the couch. She couldn’t sit down on the couch. Her legs just kept dancing! She tried to walk away from the TV, to fall down, to do anything else, but her leg kept her in front of the TV, dancing this stupid Charleston.
“There you go! Keep it up!” The instructor kept up her role of encouraging perkiness, like she overdosed on caffeine.
“I can’t stop, this is insane, something is wrong!” She snapped back futilely at the TV. Was she going insane?
“Nothing’s wrong, that means it’s working! Hips, add a little wiggle to the step, thrust to the side!” The video continued. While it seemed to be a response, Kat wrote it off as a coincidence,
Her hips started taking on an exaggerated sway in her dance step. “What!? Stop!”
“Don’t stop! Keep those legs moving! Keep those hips swaying!”
Kat just muttered to herself as her legs and hips kept following the instructor in the video instead of her. “I need a doctor. I’m nuts.”
“You don’t need a doctor, you need to dance!”
“I need to sit dow- wait, you can hear me? But this is a video!”
“Keep moving those feet! Those heels should be springy!” The instructor continued, as if it was still a normal video. “Your legs follow my dance now, and if you want to a break from dancing, you’ll need to do something for me!”
Kat felt the blood drain from her face. “H-how is this even possible...?”
“You have to download my app! Grab your phone and download it! It’s ‘Kat’s Dance Training’!”
Kat didn’t understand how this could happen, but she grabbed her phone anyway. Her legs stopped as she looked at her phone, just taking tiny steps back and forth, letting her manage her phone. When she looked away, her legs resumed dancing at their full enthusiasm. So, she kept her eyes on the phone and looked up the app. Somehow, it even had her face on it.
“Ok, I downloaded it. Please let me go.”
“Great! We’ll get you in step! Bye!” The video suddenly cut out and the instructor was gone.
Kat felt her legs suddenly stop and collapsed back onto the couch, wondering what the hell happened and if she would wake up. Instead, she just felt hungry. She groaned and got up to put something in the microwave. She paused after the first few steps and looked at her feet. Her ankles were crossed. She moved her feet to be side by side, normal, before taking another couple steps. Her legs crossed at the ankle on the first step, and then each step lifted the back foot and stepped over the lead foot to end up with her ankles crossed.
She tried to take a normal step, just straight forward. But her ankles ended up crossed again. She blew a frustrated raspberry and walked over to the kitchen, took something out of the fridge, and tossed in the microwave. While she waited, she noticed she was fidgeting and tried to calm down. But her hips wouldn’t stay still, swaying back and forth a little as she waited. What was that video?
She ate dinner and went back to the couch to return to her video browsing, when her phone beeped. She sat down and checked her notifications—it was the app from the video. She opened it and saw a countdown with 15 seconds remaining and the note “First practice session: Charleston.” She snorted and closed the app.
Then another notification from the announced that the training session was starting and would run for 30 minutes. Then her legs started moving on their own again...