Portsmouth High School Valedictorian, Colin Yost, left his American classmates with one valuable piece of life advice: to “shake it off”.
The student, and Taylor Swift fan, then led his fellow graduates in a flash mob. The group's graduation has since gone viral and is sure to go down as legend at their school.
Yost went beyond the podium dancing around the gymnasium, at which point the other students - still clad in caps and gowns - joined him for a dance.
The routine is perfectly choreographed and is executed in complete synchronisation. Afterwards, the class of 2015 sat down in a nonchalant way, as though nothing had happened. Yost told MTV News “as we practiced, the energy was just building and everyone was feeling how great it was to work together and send this positive message.” The students received instructions via a secret video Yost sent out. Details of the dance were kept from parents, who seemed pleasantly surprised at their children’s abilities.
Their performance was met with cheers and laughter from friends and relatives in the audience. With more than 750,000 views, the rest of the world appears to be enjoying it too.
The cohort were not the first to use a flash mob to celebrate the end of their high school careers. Kahuku High School, Hawaii, made headlines with their mash-up flash mob. Their performance started with an original song to the tune of ‘See You Again’ by Wiz Khalifa (whose lyrics don't usually make it in to graduation ceremonies). The Kakuku graduates then continued to perform while singing a collection of songs include ‘Shake it Off’, ‘Wrecking Ball’ and ‘Uptown Funk’. This was followed by their own ‘Haka’ (New Zealand ‘war dance’). The video gained more than 4,000,000 views- which is astonishing giving that they only spent two days rehearsing.
In his speech Yost claimed to be an “undercover nerd” and spoke about his attempt to come off as a “cool kid”. While he’s never taken dance lessons, he clearly has a natural aptitude for busting moves. He may be an “undercover nerd” in that he is attending Princeton in the fall - but with moves like that he is sure to be one of the “cool kids”.