In the wake of the Cowboys’ late touchdown to beat the Steelers on Sunday, this video purporting to show a very angry Steelers fan destroying his TV went viral on the internet:
Not trying to be a buzzkill, but anyone whose buzz this kills doesn’t deserve to be buzzed: This is fake.
If it’s not fake, it’s completely terrifying and not something we should celebrate. I’m not here to tell you how to enjoy sports, but if this is how you enjoy sports, seek help. It’s a football game. It’s utterly meaningless. No one should ever be impressed by demonstrations of passion like these, for they are reckless and dumb and likely indicate real mental-health issues that need to be addressed immediately. This dude’s kids watched him do this, so it’s a good thing they were almost certainly in on the joke.
As to that: Why’d the kid happen to be filming his dad when Ezekiel Elliott happened to break free for the game-winning touchdown?
Also, pay attention to the noises homie makes after the touchdown, around the 12-second mark in the video above. No one makes sounds like that unless they’re a) in real physical agony or b) a bad actor trying to pretend they’re in a fit of anguish or rage. Since this man appears fit enough to lift a big TV set on his own (regardless of if he actually ever does), I will assume he is in no severe pain beyond the baseline existential agony that torments us all. So I’m not buying that noise for a second.
But wait, there’s more! The kid behind the camera, apparently game to be part of Dad’s Big Plan For Internet Celebrity, immediately runs to tell Mom that Dad is unplugging the TV to move it elsewhere (the kid says, “outside,” though really he’s going to take it to another room right next to the first room). It seems awfully convenient that the kid, apparently conflicted between filming Dad’s meltdown and telling Mom about it, so happens to leave the room with the camera just before the moment of truth: Dad taking the TV away so he can destroy it in a separate room.
Ezekiel Elliott (Photo by Joe Sargent/Getty Images)
Mom, too, turns in a lackluster performance here. Upon hearing that her husband apparently intends to take the TV outside, she does not question whatsoever the implications of that decision and rather emits a blood-curdling scream almost immediately. Again, this is damning whether the video is staged or real: If this dude so frequently destroys televisions with baseball bats that his wife knows exactly what it means when he’s “taking the TV outside,” then this dude is a full-blown crazy person and someone needs to step in on behalf of those kids. If not, it suggests that Mom (actress) failed to consider the emotional arc followed by Mom (character) in this piece. And you can call me picky, but I just want a little more nuance in my viral-video performances.
Why can’t dad destroy the TV in the first room where he first starts melting down? Probably because that working TV is still there, and he had to pull this broken TV out of some other closet so he could beat it to pieces with a baseball bat.
Really, this family only gets a couple things right: First, the other kid turns in a tour de force performance as “Other Kid,” helplessly torn from a pleasant afternoon in the kitchen with Mom because Pops had to go full HAM on the TV again. I 100% buy other kid’s work as Other Kid and encourage him to consider meatier roles.
Second, destroying stuff with baseball bats happens to be super duper fun, and there’s no real fault in seizing any opportunity to do so in a relatively safe and legal manner — especially when it comes along with a shot at fleeting internet fame. So here’s to this guy for whaling away at that TV, I guess.
Unless it’s actually real, in which case it’s very sad, and only sad. Sports are for fun, y’all.
