A man who was body-shamed for dancing because of his weight now has the last laugh after a Twitter campaign to locate him in order to throw him a huge dance party proved successful. The Internet and social media can so often be used for bad. This is a refreshing story.
The so-called “Dancing Man,” named Sean, was recently the subject of ridicule on a popular message board when someone posted a split screen shot of him dancing and then looking ashamed. It’s not clear exactly where or when the image was snapped, but it took off online. The mean-spirited caption read, “Spotted this specimen trying to dance the other week. He stopped when he saw us laughing.” Ugh. See the photo below, from Twitter.
(Twitter)
On Thursday, Cassandra Fairbanks, a writer with a big online presence, noticed the bullying and posted the picture on Twitter, asking, “Anyone know this man or who posted this? There’s a huge group of ladies in LA who would like to do something special.” Sure enough, thousands of people joined the #FindDancingMan cause, and Fairbanks and her pals in an online women’s group formally invited Dancing Man to a huge bash in Los Angeles:
Dancing Man, We don’t know much about you, but a photo on the Internet suggested that you wanted to dance and were made to feel like you shouldn’t be. We want to see you dance freely and if you would have us, we would love to dance with you. We are prepared to throw quite the dance party just for you, if you’d have us. To be clear it’s 1,727 of us. And we are all women.
By Friday, the Dancing Man had been found! Sean posted a picture of himself holding a sign reading, “Hi Cass + Twitter (as requested)!” Fairbanks was thrilled. “We are going to dance!!!” she tweeted. Fairbanks then set up a crowd funding page to raise money for a huge party, hoping to hit $20,000. It’s already crossed $29,000, with no signs of slowing down. The page now has this message:
The outpouring of support for #dancingman has moved our group beyond words. We found our man and the next step is bringing him to LA for the dance party of a lifetime! Again, thank you for all of your support our minds are blown and we are so happy to make a difference for #dancingman and anyone else out there who has experienced this type of pain or ridicule. Now…LET’S DANCE! *Any proceeds not used for the #dancingman dance party will be donated to an anti-bullying campaign.
Meanwhile, celebrities are showing their support, too. “Hey @CassandraRules keep me posted about your dance party! @Dancingmanfound, never be ashamed of yourself,” tweeted Pharrell. “I offer my dj services for free for #DancingMan #DancingManFound #FindDancingMan . no one should ever be ashamed about dancing,” wrote Moby. Party details have not been announced yet… but it should be quite the bash.
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