The Super Bowl has returned toGlendale, Ariz., for the first time in eight years, and with it comes the big game's halftime spectacle.
Rihanna will be charged with putting on a show for the crowd on hand atState Farm Stadium in 2023. Her performance is highly anticipated — she has not released new music since her album "Anti" in 2016 — but she will face a tough task outperforming Katy Perry, who headlined the last Super Bowl halftime show in Arizona.
Perry put on an unforgettable show at State Farm Stadium. She rode in on a giant mechanical lion singing "Roar," performed with Lenny Kravitz and Missy Elliott, and finished with "Firework" during her 12-minute performance.
But the lasting memory from the show came at the end of her "Teenage Dream" performance, right before the transition into her popsicle-melting rendition of "California Gurls."
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It wasn't anything that the singer herself did. It had everything to do with a mistake made by one of her backup dancers, who was clad in a shark costume.
The dancer — who became known simply as "Left Shark" — appeared to forget the choreography during the song. The slip-up went viral and is now one of the best-known Super Bowl halftime moments of all time.
Rihanna may be able to match — or exceed — Perry's performance, but it will be hard for her to create something with the virality of Left Shark. Here's a look back at the iconic misstep that will forever be remembered in Super Bowl lore.
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Why is Left Shark famous?
Left Shark is famous for forgetting the choreography of the "Teenage Dream" number in Katy Perry's Super Bowl 49 halftime show.
At the beginning of the song, the two sharks — dubbed Left Shark and Right Shark — were dancing lockstep with one another. So too were the large, anthropomorphic beachballs with which Perry was singing.
But as the number went on, Left Shark appeared to increasingly lose track of where he (yes, he; read on) was in the dance. The result? He appeared to be more than a bit off-beat and flailed around in an effort to get back on track, as you can see at about the 3-minute mark in the video below.
Left shark.
— NFL (@NFL) January 29, 2020
Right shark.
All awesome. 🦈🦈@katyperry's iconic @SuperBowl XLIX Halftime Show! pic.twitter.com/fqOMy2sPHF
Or for a quick look at Left Shark's most iconic moves, see the GIF below:
Every time I get sad about the Seahawks I will turn to left shark. pic.twitter.com/DQoYT35tHA
— Lookout Landing (@LookoutLanding) February 2, 2015
Naturally, those watching the Super Bowl were delighted, amused and eventually enthralled by Left Shark. His blunders on the NFL's biggest stage ultimately made the shark a viral sensation on social media and helped to make Perry's halftime show the most watched of all time.
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Left Shark meme
Left Shark's online notoriety grew rapidly, and that spawned a series of jokes. Shortly after Perry's performance, rapper Snoop Dogg jokingly claimed on Twitter that he was the one in the Left Shark costume.
If you were wondering that was me in tha Shark costume !!
— Snoop Dogg (@SnoopDogg) February 2, 2015
Several other celebrities did the same, while Buzzfeed slapped together an instant-classic quiz entitled "Which Katy Perry Halftime Show Shark Are You?" The quiz had you pick artists as Super Bowl MVPs, a famous shark and your favorite Katy Perry song, among other prompts, to give you your answer.
Then, of course, came the memes. Countless tweets and social media posts involving Left Shark were created with people using it to poke fun at anything and everything, from XXX to a depressing Nationwide commercial that aired during the Super Bowl.
The shark on the left had just seen the Nationwide commercial pic.twitter.com/F1ZNArdmEl
— Lauren Comitor (@laurencomitor) February 2, 2015
these shark meme's are too much 😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/DJnchcEiQm
— kel (@kellwh) February 2, 2015
When you catch your roomate eating the last cookie pic.twitter.com/QH2Q3DMIPk
— Boogie2988 (@Boogie2988) February 2, 2015
Katy: Did you forget your routine again, Left Shark?
— Knipples (@StevieKnip) February 2, 2015
Left Shark: no
Katy: don't lie to me Left Shark.
Left Shark: yes pic.twitter.com/qqVxzlKEAr
Night' pic.twitter.com/CffDndSzS7
— KATY PERRY (@katyperry) February 3, 2015
But the most comical memes were those that made fun of the Seahawks' decision to throw the ball on the goal-line rather than run it with Marshawn Lynch. The two bests were still images of the shark with superimposed text that read as follows:
"Pass the ball from the 1-yard line."
"Why the hell would you throw the ball."
Indeed, the creators of the memes had a point. It was, however, serendipitous that Pete Carroll's major blunder wasn't the only one that occurred on the Super Bowl stage that night.
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What does 'Be the Left Shark' mean?
"Be the Left Shark" is a phrase that was popularized by a graduation speech given byNBC television reporter and host Meredith Vieira at Boston University's 2015 graduation.
Vieira used Left Shark to encourage students not to "strive for somebody else’s notion of perfection," which she classified as unattainable, per the Washington Post.
Remember last Super Bowl, when the Patriots won? You may be thinking of Tom Brady’s deflated balls right now, but I’m thinking of Katy Perry’s halftime performance. She was on stage dancing with two sharks. The shark on the right knew every dance move and performed perfectly. But it was the left shark, the one who went rogue and danced to his own crazy beat, who stole the show. So don’t ever be a conformist for convenience sake. Or as Mark Twain put it, ‘Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it’s time to pause and reflect.’
Be the left shark.
So, in essence, "Be the Left Shark" means be yourself, march to the beat of your own drum and don't be afraid to break from the pack. Just like Left Shark, it's OK to do things a bit differently.
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Where is Left Shark now?
The person who played Left Shark's name is Bryan Gaw. He revealed a few years later that he was behind the viral dance.
Gaw spent five years as a part of Perry's touring ensemble, per an NPR interview published Jan. 31, 2018. He explained that he had left that role a year prior to the interview to become a stylist in Los Angeles.
He told NPR that he has embraced Left Shark and even lists it on his résumé.
"Actually I don't get any negative feedback from it," he said about the viral moment. "If anything, people are, like, 'Whoa, that's so cool!' "
Gaw hasn't spoken to any notable media outlets since but appears to still be working as a hairstylist as of 2023, per his Instagram account. He also lists dancer and artist as his primary work there along with some of the photography work he does.
He has his own website — www.bryangaw.com — as well.
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Was Left Shark planned?
Yes and no. As Gaw explained to NPR, he and the other backup dancers were allowed to improvise choreography for part of the song.
"So there's a set choreography," he said. "There's also what's called free-style choreography, or, like, you get to move around or play your character as a dancer. ... I'm in a 7-foot blue shark costume. There's no cool in that. So what's the other option? Well, I'm gonna play a different character."
Gaw envisioned his character as an imperfect, everyday person, so he rehearsed his freestyle movements with that in mind.
As such, Gaw was planning to be a bit goofy with his dance moves. That said, he admitted that he took it to another level at the Super Bowl.
"Totally," Gaw said when asked about taking his goofiness to the max. "I'm on a maximum stage!"
That process is what led to Left Shark's fame. But while Gaw's dance moves may have been intentional, there's no way he could have predicted that he would become the biggest meme to come out of Super Bowl 49.
