You remember the Harlem Shake. Everyone does. 2013 was a weird year where the entire world decided to spend thirty seconds flailing around to a Baauer track. Most of those videos were harmless. Office workers in banana suits. Grandma in a motorcycle helmet. But then there was the Harlem Shake Poop Archive, a corner of the internet that is significantly less wholesome than a library of viral dance trends.
Honestly, if you’ve only ever seen the guy who plays Blippi (Stevin John) teaching your toddler about fire trucks, you aren't ready for this. Before he was the orange-and-blue-clad hero of the preschool set, John was a gross-out comedian under the name Steezy Grossman. And Grossman didn't just do the Harlem Shake. He did it on a toilet. While defecating on a friend.
Yeah. It's exactly as bad as it sounds.
What is the Harlem Shake Poop Archive?
The term basically refers to the digital footprints and re-uploads of a specific, deleted video from 2013. At the height of the Harlem Shake craze, Stevin John created a website—HarlemShakePoop.com—to host a video that pushed the meme to its absolute, disgusting limit. For years, it was just a piece of "lost" internet edge-lord history. But as Blippi became a multi-million dollar brand, the "archive" became a game of digital cat-and-mouse.
Parents started finding out. The video, which features John literally pooping on a naked friend to the beat of "Harlem Shake," is the polar opposite of "educational content."
When we talk about the Harlem Shake Poop Archive, we’re talking about the various places on the internet—the Internet Archive, Russian video mirrors, and Reddit threads—where people still try to find the footage Stevin John has spent a fortune trying to erase.
Why Blippi Wants This Gone
It's pretty obvious. You can't really be the "friendly face of kids' YouTube" if there's a video of you doing... that... floating around.
In 2019, BuzzFeed News dropped a report that blew the lid off the whole thing. Stevin John didn't deny it. He owned up to it, saying he was in his 20s, thought it was funny at the time, and now finds it "stupid and gross." But the legal team didn't just stop at an apology. They went on a scorched-earth mission using DMCA takedowns to scrub the Harlem Shake Poop Archive from the face of the earth.
The Legal Battle to Scrub the Internet
What makes this fascinating from a tech perspective is how effective the cleanup has been. Usually, once something is on the internet, it’s there forever. The "Streisand Effect" usually kicks in—the more you try to hide something, the more people look for it.
But Blippi’s team played it smart.
- Copyright Weaponization: Instead of arguing that the video was "damaging," they argued they owned the copyright. If you own the rights to the "Harlem Shake Poop" video, you can legally demand Google remove links to it.
- The Lumen Database: You can actually see the traces of these efforts in the Lumen Database, which tracks legal requests to remove content. There are entries explicitly mentioning "Harlem Shake Poop" and the specific website where it was hosted.
- SEO Suppression: By flooding the internet with wholesome Blippi content, the old "Steezy Grossman" stuff gets pushed to page 50 of Google.
The "archive" still exists in dark corners. If you look hard enough on certain forums or the Wayback Machine, you might find a dead link or a blurry thumbnail. But for the most part, the Harlem Shake Poop Archive is a ghost.
The Filthy Frank Connection
It’s worth noting that the Harlem Shake meme itself started in a pretty chaotic place. The very first video was uploaded by George Miller, better known as Filthy Frank (and now the massive music artist Joji).
Frank's content was always "on the edge." He was the king of the "gross-out" era of YouTube. So, in 2013, Stevin John wasn't necessarily an outlier. He was just a guy trying to go viral by being more shocking than the last guy. The problem is that while Joji transitioned into a moody R&B star, Stevin John transitioned into a character whose entire audience is under the age of five.
Does the Video Still Exist?
If you're looking for a "clean" version of the Harlem Shake Poop Archive today, you’re mostly going to find dead ends.
- YouTube: Instant ban.
- Vimeo: Usually caught by filters.
- Internet Archive: They’ve removed several snapshots of the original site due to "terms of service" violations.
The few people who still have the raw file usually keep it as a weird piece of "internet artifacts" or lost media. It’s become a legend in the Lost Media community—not because it’s hard to find (it’s out there), but because it’s one of the few times a major celebrity has successfully used the law to hide a massive "oops" moment.
Why We Should Care About the Harlem Shake Poop Archive
It’s more than just a gross video. It’s a case study in digital legacy.
Most of us have posted something cringe on Facebook in 2011. Imagine if that cringe was a video of you defecating on someone, and now you’re trying to sell a billion dollars worth of merchandise to families. The Harlem Shake Poop Archive represents the "Right to be Forgotten."
Is it fair for a person to be judged for a "performance art" piece they did a decade ago? Maybe not. But is it fair to hide it when your current brand is built on being a moral authority for children? That’s where it gets murky.
What you should do next:
If you’re a parent or just an internet history nerd, the best way to handle this isn't by hunting down the video (seriously, you don't want to see it). Instead, look into the Lumen Database to see how celebrities use copyright law to shape their public image. It’s a masterclass in reputation management.
Also, maybe check your own old social media archives. You probably aren't the next Blippi, but you definitely have a "Steezy Grossman" phase hiding in your "Photos" folder from college. Clean it up before you get famous.