How did sneezing into your arm become the most popular dance move worldwide?
It’s a gesture in which you bend one arm so it touches your face, and arrange your other arm so that it’s pointing straight out.

This is the dab, and many middle school students at Bedford think it originated from Cam Newton, quarterback for the Carolina Panthers, who dabs whenever he scores a touchdown.
While that is true, he isn’t the one who invented it. There is disagreement of where the dab actually started, but according to Wikipedia, artists involved were possibly Migos, Skippa da Flippa, and PeeWee Longway, the Rich kid in Atlanta, Georgia.

Why do middle schoolers think this move is so cool?

It is especially popular among eighth grade boys. Andrew Robin, a current eighth grader at Bedford says, “It’s a nice exclamation point for something funny, and it’s a celebration when you do something exciting.” Do eighth graders boys think the move shows power over the school? Or do they do it because “everyone else” does it? For sure, when one person does it, the move catches on like wildfire. Almost everyone, including teachers are dabbing like it is a normal thing to do in the middle of class.

Naomi Chudnovskiy, a science teacher at the United Nations International school in New York city and a family member, says “I think kids like to dab because they see someone famous do it, and so they copy it to be cool. My students usually do it in celebration or to accent a point.” At her school, students try to do it in her class, but she stops them.

Cam Newton has officially announced his “retirement” of the dab, but students still do it. According to the “Los Angeles Times,” Newton said, “I have to put that aside.” Are they trying to keep up with the trends or is the dab just too cool to give up?