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Many will laugh now, but in 2009, learning to pindrop was a young Angeleno\u2019s rite of passage. Equipped with only an iPod, wired earphones through your crew neck and the tightest jeans in your closet, you got yourself on the carrot-colored 108 bus<\/a>, skated to the lo\u2019 dropped on AIM Away and had the homies film you on a digicam hitting the dougie. And you better hit that.<\/p>\n Following the 1960s Black Arts Movement and \u201890s gangsta rap, jerkin\u2019 joins the ranks as one of the most influential art movements to come out of the city. It started with a dance. There was one core move \u2014 the jerk: putting one leg in front of the other, bending the legs while moving them in and out to get as low as possible while the torso bounces in rhythm. This gave birth to the reject, the pindrop, the dip and, later, the dougie, the cat daddy and the juice. When combined, the moves became more than just a routine. It\u2019s a community, an aesthetic, an era and a movement, dripping with the kind of waviness that demands your attention. You can see in a jerk\u2019s expression the moment they start feelin\u2019 themselves:<\/a> face stanky and hands patting down their torso as if to recall that they\u2019re still in a body on this planet. When rappers and producers posted a song to MySpace, they\u2019d know it knocked if all the local crews made a video dancing to it. Once on YouTube, songs like \u201cMiss Me Kiss Me\u201d by Cold Flamez, \u201cWoW\u201d by Marvel Inc, \u201cTeach Me How to Jerk\u201d by Audio Push and, of course, New Boyz\u2019 \u201cYou\u2019re a Jerk\u201d started racking up tens of millions of views, and it was only a matter of time until knees started hitting the concrete in Honolulu from Aloha Inc<\/a>, Tunisia from the BDM Crew<\/a> and \u201cGer(k)many\u201d from Swagg Out BoizZ.<\/a> Before long, there were \u201c106 & Park\u201d appearances, brand deals and even a Nick Cannon movie starring <\/a>one of the most famous jerkin\u2019 crews, the Rangerz.<\/p>\n With an aesthetic that took notes from 2000s hip-hop\u2019s obsession with colorful polos and documented through overblown and deep-fried photos that infiltrated MySpace walls, the jerkin\u2019 movement in L.A. was an unprecedented evolution of style and sound<\/a> coupled with budding social media. It was the perfect storm to take the footwork happening on the streets of L.A. viral. <\/p>\n For little fifth-grade me, watching videos of jerkers cut up on the bus and get off at the mall made me excited to inherit the city, because it was clear it belonged to the youth.<\/p>\n Jerkin\u2019 was what happened when you used asphalt as your dance floor and your hometown as your playground,<\/a> reclaiming your place within it. For a cool minute, the streets were the gathering spot. Swept with neon-dyed fauxhawks, snapbacks, Real 3D Glasses with the lenses poked out and a hyphy-adjacent soundtrack to match, L.A was alive. It\u2019s getting hard to accept that classic local haunts are losing their luster \u2014 Crenshaw Mall, Venice Beach, the Bridge (or whatever it\u2019s called now). There\u2019s been a lot of lamenting about the lack of third spaces \u2014 gentrification, specifically, has played a role in the demise of many of them \u2014 but maybe the issue is also that y\u2019all don\u2019t go outside anymore.<\/p>\n The jerkin\u2019 movement proved the city was a place of alchemy. Early on, figures from the scene understood it as somewhere to create and follow dreams. Up to today, many have siphoned their nascent scene fame into careers in music, choreography and media. I asked those in the jerkin\u2019 movement about what it took to pave that path in style and watch the world follow.<\/p>\n LAHiggz a.k.a. Langston Higgins wears an Avirex Icon jacket, Lacoste padded shirt and winter gloves, Louis Vuitton belt, Diesel trousers, OM NYC mules and a G-Shock watch.<\/p>\n \u2018Everybody wanted to be a part of this.\u2019<\/p>\n Young Sam, rapper: <\/b>Jerkin\u2019 was more than a dance. It was a lifestyle. The fashion trends, the music \u2014 that wasn\u2019t just what we did, it was who we were.<\/p>\n Bigklit, formerly Indigo Vanity<\/b>, musician<\/b>: <\/b>People wanted something new. They wanted a breath of fresh air. A lot of people were opening up to a new world where people could express themselves in a different way. And of course, we were fly \u2014 like, come on.<\/p>\n Jeff Weiss, editor of POW Magazine: <\/b>You really have powerhouses coming out of this movement. The entire next generation forms out of it.<\/p>\n Storm DeBarge, formerly of Drop Dead Inc., choreographer: <\/b>Ty Dolla Sign came from jerkin\u2019. Drakeo the Ruler came from jerkin\u2019. YG came from jerkin\u2019. A lot of these n\u2014 came from jerkin\u2019. Tyga, Lil Uzi [Vert] was in the jerkin\u2019 movement<\/a>. Nobody ever want to bring it up. Half of the reason y\u2019all early music was cracking is because of us dancing down and making it viral every time.<\/p>\n Legacy, formerly of New Boyz, rapper, producer, artist:<\/b> There were individual crews, but it was a whole collective movement. They\u2019re jerkin\u2019 in Africa, in Tokyo. They had jerk crews in Puerto Rico, Brazil, the Dominican Republic. It was a whole civilization of people throughout the world that had the same vibe, swag and style.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n