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" In the opening scene of Macklemore &amp;amp;amp; Ryan Lewis&amp;#039; &amp;quot;Dance Off,&amp;quot; Macklemore is staring at Macklemore in a mirror, entertaining himself with Macklemore dance moves. Macklemore is his own biggest fan, and in the video\u00A0he walks to the center of a wedding dance circle, busts some moves, and basically begs you to recreate it at the reception of the next holy union you&amp;#039;re invited to.  Macklemore is trying. Hard. Good lord, he&amp;#039;s doing everything he can to recreate the ubiquitous, shareable, meme-able success of his breakout hit &amp;quot;Thrift Shop.&amp;quot; He wants so bad to be Drake, an artist who can&amp;#039;t do some basic face grooming without becoming the Internet&amp;#039;s next crying basketball superstar.  But Macklemore will never be Drake.\u00A0He&amp;#039;ll never become an organic commodity of the internet, because Macklemore tries too hard. He tried too hard to be funny with that &amp;quot;Spoons&amp;quot; song, and inadvertently created the worst song ever recorded by a human. He tried too hard to be woke, and released one of the most guilt-ridden songs of the 21st Century. He tried too hard to take his Grammy wins with class and dignity, and instead pandered to real hip-hop fans by tweeting a photo of his own apology to Kendrick Lamar.\u00A0 In his latest single and video for &amp;quot;Dance Off,&amp;quot;\u00A0Macklemore is trying too hard to do what, exactly? Coin a phrase\u2014&amp;quot;dance off&amp;quot;\u2014that&amp;#039;s been around for decades? Put Idris Elba in a video for some free clicks because the Internet actually loves him? Start some sort of vague dance craze? Indulge\u00A0international markets with a dancehall rhythm?        It&amp;#039;s not going to work, because for all its faults, the Internet rewards sincerity: Damn Daniel, those stupid llamas, crying Jordan!\u00A0Who is Macklemore? Can you describe him without mentioning his appearance, where he&amp;#039;s from, or any song titles? What does he stand for? What do you, as the consumer, connect to?\u00A0 When someone shares something on the Internet, they&amp;#039;re doing so because they feel like they&amp;#039;re in on the joke. They put tiny Drakes on things, they repurpose the &amp;quot;Hotline Bling&amp;quot; video\u00A0because they&amp;#039;re not just a consumer, they&amp;#039;re a producer. Drake invites this, by A) not asking for it B) accepting the jokes without perpetuating them, and C) Never taking himself too seriously, while demanding his work be respected.  It&amp;#039;s not an easy balance to find, and it&amp;#039;s part of the age-old paradox of being cool without actually trying to be cool. Here, listen to one of the finest rappers around today explain the conundrum:        "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/music/news/a45032/macklemore-trying-too-hard-dance-off/>