This week in news about people just trying to live their best life no matter the circumstances comes a viral video of a man who has set up a hammock on a public transit bus. He is then confronted by the bus driver about taking the hammock down, but is met with hilarious rebellion by the over-the-top citizen, who is just trying to use public transportation the way he wants to. See the full TikTok video below.
The video, now viewed over a hundred million times across many different social media platforms, opens almost at the midway point of the altercation. The tension between bus driver and careless public transit user has already escalated a bit, and although in the first half of the video we find it humorous as the man twirls around in his hammock “like an anaconda,” as he states. By the back half of the video, the humor loses its flair, and now these people are going to be late for work. Expect to see signs on buses everywhere that say “no hammocks allowed” soon.
Since the start of being able to upload a video to social media has been so quick, taking mere seconds for something outlandish to hit the web, we as a society have seen some people acting wild publicly for close to a decade now. Plenty of times we have seen the crazed individuals who have had city life get to them and have decided to have an eccentric attitude no matter where they go.
The crazy thing about it is that it has become so common to see the human race doing wild things in public that we never know when the wool is being pulled over our heads, just like in this hilarious video.
Yes, the video is actually staged, and is a snippet of a skit produced by Las Vegas-based content creators named Lexi and Ocean, who uploaded it to their Facebook page, where they produce videos that are what we’re calling “engagement bait:” Short-form videos to get people talking. However, the video didn’t gain much traction until TikTok user Scotty Kash posted the video on his page, and it was then that the video shot up the algorithm.
Over the last week, the eccentric hammock guy who won’t bow down to societal norms and formalities went from a simple social media sketch to an internet meme, all because we all thought there was a chance that this was a real situation on a public bus. The power of the internet can be a wild thing.
Knowing that the video was staged does make it lose its flavor a bit, but it is also another of the probably hundred million examples of society always trying to satirize society. We love seeing people go against the grain a bit. Why wouldn’t you want to set up a hammock on a bus? It does look comfortable, and you’re not stuck sitting next to a cranky person who is just as late for work as you are. Seeing someone like the hammock guy either in public or over a video is going to stick in your head for awhile, whether you agree with his motives or not.
Still, this is just another example of the flavor of the week in terms of an internet video that sells us a facade meant for nothing more than quick humorous reasons, and once again, we all fell for it.