MORE than 100 youngsters descended on Central Park to film Chelmsford's own version of the Harlem Shake, the dance craze sweeping the internet.
Alex Caviel, 18, mobilised scores of teenagers from the across the county using Twitter and Facebook after deciding to organise his own Harlem Shake event.
The dance craze began earlier this month when a group of Australian teenagers mimicked the choreography in the music video of the song by Bauuer.
It soon went viral attracting 16 million hits and is taking the internet by storm, similar to the dance craze Gangnam Style.
Alex, a sixth form pupil at the Sandon School, said: "I seriously was not expecting this many people to show up. I did invite 1,000 people and I knew I had 150 people who liked the event on Facebook so I guess I had a rough estimate."
Teenagers gathered outside McDonald's on Chelmsford High Street on Saturday where they waited patiently for the signal to start dancing.
But with no sound system, the youngsters swarmed through the High Street to Central Park's skate ramp, where Alex had arranged for a stereo to be dropped off by a friend.
"There have been other Harlem Shakes going around Essex but we thought we might as well give it a go too," said Alex.
"We've uploaded this film onto YouTube – it is really just another reason to get Chelmsford in the news for something positive.
"I literally made the event on Facebook, my sister got involved and shared the link and then from there people just started posting the link onto their Facebook pages and it spread.
"Youngsters get such a bad name these days, so another reason for doing this was to show that we can make a positive impact in society and for Chelmsford."
Among the crowds – where some dressed as everything from zombies to giant bananas – was mum Christine St Clair, 41, daughter, Karina Mercadal-St Clair, 14, and friend, Kimberly Ripton, 14.
Karina and Kimberly, who both go to Hylands School, found out about the event on Facebook and were excited to be a part of the video, which has since had 5,000 hits.
But mum, Christine, was teasing the girls and said: "I'm going to get into the middle of the crowd and take my top off," to which Karina said: "No, no please don't, I'm begging you."
Christine added: "The things mums do for their kids nowadays! I'm here now so I might as well get involved, but I'll stay at the back.
"I heard someone saying this morning that there were 1,000 people turning up, and the police were all going to come down and patrol, but it's just a bunch of kids having some fun."
