The great thing about the Series of Tubes is that so many people are sifting through so much stuff, you’re bound to find random bits of awesomesauce. Things you would never intentionally seek out.

John Lindo is wonderfully random bit of awesomesauce, and I am happy to do a little Friendly Friday shout-out to him.

Watch this, then let’s talk about why it works, and why it went viral.

This works because there’s a massive gap between expectation and result.

As an audience, we’ve been trained to think of professional dancers as size zero models that come in male and female. They’re young, tanned and costumed. They dance with the stars, and sometimes date the stars.

John is proudly the opposite of all that. He looks like an average middle-aged dad from the suburbs and shatters your every expectation. He’s full of joy, competence and confidence. I’m not a dance expert or fan, and I’d happily watch more videos of him, and try to learn a bit from him. My wife would go nuts. If we men were crazy smart, we’d do Fight Club on Tuesdays and Thursdays, then get John to teach us to dance like this on Mondays and Wednesday while our bruises fade, then we’d surprise our wives or girlfriends on Friday nights.

Back to why this works: that big gap between expectation and result is why Paul Potts made us cry. Simon Cowell took one look at Paul Potts and dismissed him, and Simon wasn’t the only one. We all did. And then Paul opened his mouth to sing.

My friend Robin Boyes says, “Violate negative stereotypes in a positive way.” John takes a Mack truck to those negative stereotypes.

And no, this isn’t a one-off, a happy moment where months of practicing a dance with an amazing partner culminated in this dance. He competes in dance competitions and exhibitions all over the world, with all sorts of partners, because he’s damned good at it. Check him out in Finland in this video.

I tip my hat to John the Lindo and raise my mug of coffee in his direction. You rock.

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Reformed journalist. Scribbler of speeches and whatnot. Wrote a thriller that won some award and is represented by Jill Marr of the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency.

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