Teen Who Dabbed in Front of Paul Ryan Sparks an Internet Fight

Just a little dab has the internet in uproar. On Tuesday, Congressman Roger Marshall posed with his family while being sworn in by Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan. During the photo op, Marshall’s teenage son Cal became 2017’s first internet celebrity.

That’s because Cal broke out some dabbing, the dance move popularized by athletes, which reached peak internet saturation in mid-2016 and now has settled into midwestern high schools. Congressman Marshall looked to his left to see his teen son mid-dab:

It was only a matter of time before the 17-year-old Cal’s dab had people freaking out on both sides of the political aisle. It all started when Marshall, a Republican from Kansas, pulled a Classic Dad move: publicly telling his boss that he grounded his son for embarrassing him at what amounted to the company picnic:

This was pretty fair considering that his father was being sworn in to public office. Marshall wanted to make sure that Ryan knew his son’s infraction would not go unpunished. Little did he know that this ruling would have quite the polarizing effect.

There are those that totally loved it:

And just want the kid to have some fun:

Some are taking it perhaps a dab too seriously:

Emotions escalated among the Twitter eggs:

Meanwhile, others brought up the all sorts of things that the GOP has gotten away with that doesn’t include a post-mortem dance move:

Then there’s someone like Lisa just speaking the truth:

For those still a little unfamiliar with the dance move, dabbing has been around since 2015 thanks to Atlanta hip-hop communities and was flung into the spotlight once football players started doing it on the field. Just like its predecessor the “nae nae,” eventual exposure to a mainstream audience killed these dance moves’ cool factor, leaving us with this:

While the internet may want to rip on Cal’s semi-obnoxious moment, it really does seem like it was in all good fun. He eventually settled down and posed normally. For his part, Ryan adopted an attitude of proud ignorance, posting on Twitter, “Still don’t get what dabbing is, though.”