I can’t even handle this video today. Like, I really think I had to wait to be 35 years old and see Cameo's 1986 music video for "Word Up" afresh for me to really appreciate just how artsy and dryly funny and perfectly staged and totally weird it is.

I would like to say that my favorite thing about it is all the close-ups on LeVar Burton’s facial expressions (ACTING! He is an ACT-TOR!):

...But my really favorite thing is the dancing. All of the dancing! You should try to dance with Cameo when he dances, because obviously a guy in a red plastic codpiece – which distracts from EVERYTHING, by the way – knows how to break down the moves that bring all the boys and girls (and super kool DJ’s) to the park just so they can hear him say that he don’t need no romance, no romance, no romance for him, MAAAAAA-MA!

Also, I want to believe that if I’d been an adult during these times (instead of a dorky and highly impressionable 3rd grader) I’d have had a super cool geometric haircut like the lady Cameo disses and dismisses in the park: 

But I think we all know that I wouldn’t have had the guts for it. That’s the kind of haircut that follows you for the rest of your life, friends. That lady went on to be a judge, I bet, or maybe a super successful internet marketer, and everyone who knew her back then probably still passes around a photo of her from that video at least once a year to all her coworkers and new family members and just-friended friends on Facebook. And she’s probably like, “No, guuuuyyyssss! That was the styyyle back then! It was coooool! I was in a ROCK VIDEO because of it!” and everyone else is like, “OMG LOOK AT YOUR WEIRO HAIR THAT EVEN CAMEO DIDN’T WANT NEAR HIS RED PLASTIC JOCK CUP, LADY.”

Also, that crop top/sports jacket ensemble on that one Bobbie Brown lookalike: 

The '80s, you guys.

- Originally published November 10, 2017