Before This Video Came Into Our Lives, We Missed It So Bad

Faculty in Harvard's Economics Department are trading their souls for a wish, pennies and dimes for a kiss.

In a YouTube video posted on Thursday, prominent economics professors can be seen dancing and lip-synching to Carly Rae Jepsen's pop hit "Call Me Maybe." The video, which had already been viewed more than 50,000 times Saturday afternoon, was filmed by Emily Neill, the department's undergraduate program administrator, and edited by Noah, her 10-year-old son.

Neill said she created the video to help undergraduates feel that their professors are approachable. She said the hardest part was explaining the idea to faculty members. "I said, 'Okay, there's this popular song'—I was already going to lose there—'and there's this thing called a meme,'" Neill said. "If they made it through my explanation, they were very ready to do it."

Economics professor N. Gregory Mankiw, who breaks out his best moves 2:57 minutes into the video, said the video was created as part of an annual department-wide evening event to honor graduate students.

Mankiw, the department chair, acknowledged that he and his colleagues may not be ready to leave their day jobs for showtime just yet.

"Maybe we needed a little more rehearsal," Mankiw said. "But we didn't get any."

UPDATED: Dec. 8, 4:53 p.m.