The AC Transit Bus Fight, a Post-Mortem

(Scroll down the page to see all the videos of Epic Beard Man [Vietnam Tom] and the ambalamps guy’s interview.)

Preface- This post is a bit different than that which we normally blog about.  We’re considering adding more categories to this blog with a greater variety of posts ranging from highlights of awesome content and memes to analysis of industry trends, and possibly even featurettes of awesome users who share really cool things on Redux. This first post will be about The AC Transit Bus Fight and we’ll try to sum up all the related content into one easily digestible form.

The AC Transit Bus Fight

Description:

The video of a Vietnam veteran (Thomas Bruso) and an intoxicated African American gentleman (Michael) blew up the Internets after it was posted to YouTube on February 16, 2010. It proceeded to go viral, making its rounds via forums, postings to Facebook, tweets on Twitter and emails/IMs to friends. The amazing thing about it is the timeframe in which it all happened, after being posted it immediately went viral, garnering 1 million views by the end of Feb 17th or 24 hours after it was first posted.

On Redux the clip received thousands of views (AC Transit Bus Fight on Redux), and this does not include all the meme related content that was shared on Redux (which was substantial).

What Happened?

Details vary depending on which party you want to believe; however, from what I gather comments by Tom were taken out of context as being racist. Tom had been talking about going to a funeral on Friday and how he was going to have his brother shine his shoes up. Michael proceeded to say “why does a brother have to shine your shoes?” An argument ensued. When Tom tried to distance himself from conflict by going to the front of the bus Michael followed and eventually physically struck Tom. Tom then rained down a hailstorm of flurried blows in self defense.

Reasons Why It Exploded?

  1. Everyone likes a good fist fight (search YouTube, there are hundreds of them)
  2. Racial tensions locally (in Oakland) and possibly nationwide/globally
  3. Tom’s back story/personality and his shirt (which read “I am a motherfucker”)
  4. Multiple subplots:
    1. The girl videotaping the fight egging Michael on.
    2. The girl videotaping the fight then seen taking someone elses bag (some people accused her of stealing, which she denied).
  5. Frictionless distribution mechanisms (Twitter, Facebook, Redux, Digg, etc)
  6. Mainstream press picked up the story pretty quickly.
  7. The Aftermath (see below)

Spinoff Memes Generated:

  1. “Epic Beard Man”
  2. “Amber Lamps”
  3. “Bring Da Ambalamps”

The Aftermath:

After The Fight – Outside The Infamous Bus

The Day After – Videographer Explains Her Side of the Story

Post Fight Interview with Tom (a.k.a. “Epic Beard Man” a.k.a. “Vietnam Tom”)-

“I Am A Motherfucker” – Two Part Film
Part 1 -

Part 2 -

Post Fight Interview with Michael (aka the drunk guy)-

Pre-Fight – “Vietnam Tom” gets tazed by Oakland Police Department-

Raw Video of “Epic Beard Man” Being Tazed at an Oakland A’s Game-


March 5, 2010   |   URL: http://tumblr.com/ZRODuw9_Lf3N