Busted: Looks like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did the 'Breakfast Club' dance in 2010

Can't imagine she'll bounce back from this.
 By 
Chloe Bryan
 on 
Busted: Looks like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did the 'Breakfast Club' dance in 2010
Credit: Win McNamee / Getty Images

She's really finished this time.

Right-wing critics, who have long been obsessed with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's past, have just exposed her past involvement in a grievous crime: doing that choreography from The Breakfast Club.

A video featuring the freshman Congress member dancing was circulated on Twitter Thursday, ostensibly in an effort damage her reputation. Unfortunately for the haters, though, it seems to have had the opposite effect. This is probably because it's a pure and wholesome expression of joy, something which with the online right is unfamiliar.

Despite captions to the contrary, the clip is not from Ocasio-Cortez's high school years -- it's from 2010, when she was a senior at Boston University. The audio in the video going around isn't original, either. As Parker Higgins pointed out in an extensive Twitter thread, it's actually part of an early meme. In mid-2009, a video mashup of the dance sequence from The Breakfast Club and Phoenix's song "Lisztomania" went viral, eventually inspiring a group of people in Brooklyn to create a shot-by-shot remake. "Then a group in SF did it too and it was off to the races," Higgins wrote, "with versions popping up all over the place."

The version Ocasio-Cortez appears in -- also a shot-for-shot remake of the original -- is Boston University's contribution.

Even if you don't know the video's origins, though, it speaks volumes that anyone thought it would affect Ocasio-Cortez negatively at all. In fact, the clip seems to have made her even more popular on Twitter -- something she's had no trouble with anyway.

We imagine Ocasio-Cortez will address this fun viral moment when she returns from being sworn in to the United States House of Representatives.

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Chloe Bryan

Chloe was the shopping editor at Mashable. She was also previously a culture reporter. You can follow her on Twitter at @chloebryan.

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