PEOPLE ARE JUST mad for twerking at the moment.

It’s the dance craze that took hold last year and is continuing to seep across pop culture like all the best raunchy dance crazes.

Former Disney starlet Miley Cyrus released a new video yesterday (that’s already clocked up nearly 5 million views) where she shows off her new found love of twerking:

via Heavy

A love that has been well documented of late and is discussed by Miley here:

ryanseacrest / YouTube

But what is twerking? And why does it seem to be so popular?

(And please note that we’re veering into faintly NSFW territory throughout this piece)

Basically it’s a full-on dance style that involves squatting quite low and shaking your ass in a suggestive manner.

And we say suggestive we mean very, very, very suggestive:

via TwerkGifs

The style of dance was said to originate in New Orleans in the mid 90s but as a dance craze that’s sweeping YouTube and Instagram it’s really taken hold since two songs found popularity online last year.

Juicy J’s rap-hit Bandz Make Her Dance (an obvious influence on recent singles by Miley Cyrus and Rihanna) became something of a twerking anthem and electronic music producer Diplo hit YouTube gold with his track Express Yourself (some NSFW visuals).

maddecent / YouTube

Diplo got his fans to send him pics of themselves twerking in unusual locations using #expressyourself as a tag and it’s what kicked off everybody giving twerking a go.

Even underwater.

And should you want a how-to video then this is a good start:

Howcast / YouTube

Still, plenty of people are getting in on the action, even One Direction.

We like that Niall decides to take his phone out and look it up on YouTube beforehand

Fatima Medrano / YouTube

And there was even a group of 33 (!) high school students in America who got suspended for twerking.

Seriously:

TheYoungTurks / YouTube

And there’s plenty of people who can’t get it right and just look like a weird frog leaping out of the room:

GamedIndepth.com / YouTube

Given that Diplo made 2012 the year of the twerk and now Miley Cyrus is keen to prove her twerking credentials:

Sambo Slice Eats / YouTube

We feel like it may not be going away.

Maybe LivingSocial could do a deal on some twerking classes?

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33 American high school students suspended for twerking>