It’s only fitting that James Gunn would lead a large group of Marvel Comics‘ characters to dancing glory at the tail end of his Guardians of the Galaxy tour. The movie is a huge success, with a rabid fandom and viral dance craze to go with it. He’s basically the king of the Marvel nerds right now and Dragoncon is his kingdom.
As you can see above, Gunn and his brother Sean lead this variety of cosplayers in the act of ‘grooting.’ It might just look like silly dancing inspired by the dancing Groot from the end of the movie,but everyone keeps telling me there’s more to it. From ComicBook.com:
The popular scene already had fans demanding dancing Baby Groot toys, but Guardians of the Galaxy’s Michael Rooker might have taken it one step further. As previously reported by Comicbook.com, Rooker recreated the Baby Groot dance while standing in a trashcan behind Dave Bautista at the Wizard World Chicago Comic-Con.
The video has quickly gone viral, and the term “grooting” is spreading like wildfire on social media. Noticing the trend, Marvel Comics has quickly jumped onboard and been encouraging it. In the latest episode of Marvel’s The Watcher Show, host Lorraine Cink did some “grooting” of her own and encouraged fans to share their own “grooting” videos on social media using the hashtag #grooting.
We used to call this Frogging back in my day, named after Michigan J. Frog of course. We also used to eat a cool bowl of beets on a hot summer evening and relax to the sound of hungry cats at the trailer park next door. So don’t think your grooting is all fancy.
It certainly doesn’t take much coaching to groot either, as you can see in the second video below posted on Gunn’s account. I guess this is what you’ll get eight weeks of videos for once everyone is finished with the ice bucket challenge.
(Via Dragoncon / James Gunn / ComicBook.com)
