What the Hell Happened To: The ‘Evolution of Dance’ Guy [ANSWERS INSIDE!]

As reporters/journalists/chroniclers of all things “new media,” NMR is often people’s source for questions, such as: “What the hell happened to the ‘diarrhea jacuzzi girl’?” Oftentimes, we can’t answer questions like this because we don’t friggin’ know. Frequently, there aren’t any answers because they dropped offline and stopped making/showing up in videos.

But these people/animals/objects are an important part of the culture. Where would we be without “diarrhea jacuzzi girl”? I’ll answer that: nowhere. And so what we want to do, as often as we can, is track down these people/animals/objects so that you can get some closure in your life. Also because one day, it might be the answer that gets you a “pink pie” in Trivial Pursuit at some future Thanksgiving “Family Game Night” and we want to play our part in that. So join us as we hunt down some answers in our recurring weekend feature “What the Hell Happened To __________________?”

This week, we find out what the hell happened to The “Evolution of Dance” Guy

Judson Laipply was the hottest thing on the internet in its early years. His video, the Evolution of Dance, which showed the “inspirational comedian” doing the various shimmy’s and shakes of pop culture movement over the years caught fire in a hard way and basically gave this guy a solid career. That was eight years ago. Since then, Judson has been one of the performers in the celebrated Weezer “Pork & Beans” video as well as roaming the country as a motivational speaker, doubtlessly performing some aspect of the dance routine that scored him over 289 million views on YouTube.

In 2009, Judson returned to YouTube with a new EoD video, titled, naturally, “Evolution of Dance 2.” That clip has received a still-healthy 22 million views in the years since.

Next he sidestepped into sports and made an Evolution of the Touchdown Dance vid for ESPN that eked across the goal line with only a million views:

Judson, in 2010, claimed he was going to be an “Evolution of the Dance 3” — a version that was allegedly going to include LMFAO’s “Party Rock Anthem” and “Sexy And I Know It.” And though several videos purport to be this missing video, none of them are correct:

Weird, right? But still hilarious.

Well, apparently he just tacked some new songs onto the original bit and performs it in his motivational speeches at all those high schools across the country. Considering that everyone knows about his motivational speaking career it seems, this wouldn’t be an exciting “What the Hell happened To …” EXCEPT we have a spectacular bit of information:

Judson just uploaded a video application to be on American Ninja Warrior! Yeah, in addition to being an exceptionally funny dancer and Ohio native, he’s ninja as f**k! And with his past YouTube career in full namecheck, he’s applying to be a TV badass. So that’s certainly something. Of course, NMR is rooting him on every step of the way!