The men’s cross country team has style — Gangnam style.

After seeing a music video for the popular South Korean song “Gangnam Style” by PSY, 2010 graduate and former runner John Bernard filmed some members of the team in a parody video.

The video, featuring four runners performing the song around campus, has reached more than 17,700 views since he uploaded it Sept. 11.

“I saw a good fit here and I knew we could potentially have a viral video,” he said. “This was going to be huge.”

Bernard called cross-country runner Greg Black and pitched his idea.

“He said, ‘hey, dude, I have this video idea,’” Black said. “He thought it would be hilarious.”

After recruiting fellow runners Jason Salyer, Josh Franek and Perry Fraylick, the men were ready to film.

“We filmed on a Saturday morning and it was pretty quiet,” Bernard said. “I gave them direction in the beginning and they kind of choreographed it themselves.”

That choreography showcased the runners dancing in shirts, ties and short running shorts around campus.

“We took some scenes from the original video and made it our own,” Salyer said. “A lot of it was spontaneous.”

Franek said his favorite part of the four and a half minute video was dancing on the “Metamorphosis” statue near the University seal.

“It was refreshing,” he said.

Dancing is not one of Fraylick’s strong suits, but he said he would do the video anyway.

“I’m so inflexible,” he said.

The other runners were glad to have him.

“We needed a very bad dancer,” Black said. “That’s why we chose Perry.”

Bad dancing or not, the runners said they enjoyed the five-hour shoot.

After spending around ten hours editing the footage, Bernard uploaded the video.

“Our goal was to get 1,000 views this first week, but we got 2,000 in the first 24 hours,” Salyer said.

Everyone who watched the video seemed really positive, Black said.

“My mom just said, ‘hey, you’re really weird,’” Franek said. “She liked it.”

Bernard has a cameo in the video, playing a man who worked in the athletic department, who tells the runners they have to do the dance to increase their popularity in South Korea.

Ironically, the second-largest demographic who “liked” the video on youtube were from South Korea, Bernard said.

Aside from showing off their dance moves in cyber space, gaining recognition for their sport was a motivation for the parody.

“My only goal is to make the cross-country team a little more known on campus,” Bernard said. “There’s a lot of acknowledgement for other sports, but we did it another way.”

As of now, the runners said they’re enjoying the success of the video and are even talking about creating another one.

Bernard said he would be up to coming back up to the University to film them again.

“It was a lot of fun, I definitely had a good time and I hope we can do it again,” he said. “These guys are smart. There’s a lot of talent there.”

That talent can easily be displayed upon request now that the runners are getting recognized for the video.

“If people request dances, we’ll get down,” Black said.