Imagine if one of your worst moments—a regrettable outburst—was recorded and published without your consent for the entire world to see. No matter how good or kind you are, what if the world’s only glimpse of you was a four-minute snapshot of your most unflattering behavior?
A little over eleven years ago, a guy called Bill Mac posted a video on YouTube of a small, petulant man having a full-blown meltdown—a conniption, if you will—at another man playing the trumpet on the streets of New York.
The person taking the video and the trumpet player never really argue back. Instead, the angry man continuously complains and rants, without objection, as if he were arguing with himself.
Oddly enough, the video went viral and amassed 7.2 million views.
If you haven’t already seen it—and I imagine some of you have—I recommend taking a few minutes to watch it HERE.
It’s a curious spectacle, one that is ultimately meaningless in the grand scheme of your life or even the world at large, but nonetheless highlights some of the more unsavory parts of our human nature.
Why do we get so angry at random inconveniences throughout the day? And why do certain things bother us so tremendously, while we simply brush off other things without a second thought?
Throughout the video, it seems as though the angry man is projecting his own feelings of inadequacy and insecurity rather than genuinely directing his frustrations at the trumpet player. Amid his tirades of degradation and anger, he repeatedly feels compelled to highlight his own accomplishments, almost as if constructing a façade of ethos. But why? I have to imagine that all the nasty things he says about the trumpet player are really reflections of how he feels about himself.
And that’s why I love this video.
It’s a stark reminder that we are often driven by our own worst impulses—years or decades of unchecked habits and insecurities shaping the foundational pillars of our behavior. That is, unless we learn to actively confront and manage those impulses.
I felt compelled to dig deeper and learn more about this enigmatic man. I discovered his name is Douglas Levinson and eventually came across an interview from a year ago (10 years after the outburst), in which he discusses his reaction to the viral video. After watching it, I got the sense that he enjoys the attention the video has brought him, despite it casting a negative light on his character. However, he does claim that the temper tantrum was a one-time incident, explaining that he “just felt very strongly about the circumstances and let it rip.”
When a moment like this randomly goes viral, it often gets remixed or memed in countless ways across social media and beyond. One of the most fascinating aspects of our current media landscape is how much of it is mixed media—created, edited, and transformed by random users on the internet.
A couple weeks ago, I was messing around with some synths in Logic. When I finished putting the short song together, I thought to myself, “I wish I had an audio clip of someone freaking the f*ck out that I could layer over this.” And then it hit me—I suddenly remembered this video of the trumpet confrontation. It was perfect.
I cobbled together a video to accompany the music, which you can watch HERE.
I’ll leave you with a quick anecdote from this past week:
On Thanksgiving Eve, I went out with a few high school friends. While I’m no longer a recent college graduate, this night has become an unofficial tradition for many college students and young adults. It’s a chance to reconnect with high school friends who are home for the holiday. The night is often chaotic and lively, full of long waits at crowded bars, blacked out twenty-something-year-olds, and a mix of nostalgia and awkward reunions.
At one point, I found myself in a bar heading up the stairs to the second floor, where the bathroom was located. At the base of the stairs, a young guy—probably around twenty-one—was standing with his buddies. As I passed him, he turned to me and said, “If you go up there, you’re gay.”
I ignored him at first, choosing to continue up the stairs. But when I reached the top, I impulsively turned around and flipped him the bird. He and his friends erupted in laughter.
Almost immediately, I regretted giving him the finger. They had set the bait, and I’d taken it.
The encounter left me wondering: What if someone had recorded that moment and posted it online? What if I became known as the “guy who gave the finger in that one video”?
Who are we, really, if not the sum of our choices in moments both big and small?
Imagine if one of your worst moments—a regrettable outburst—was recorded and published without your consent for the entire world to see. No matter how good or kind you are, what if the world’s only glimpse of you was a four-minute snapshot of your most unflattering behavior?
A little over eleven years ago, a guy called Bill Mac posted a video on YouTube of a small, petulant man having a full-blown meltdown—a conniption, if you will—at another man playing the trumpet on the streets of New York.
The person taking the video and the trumpet player never really argue back. Instead, the angry man continuously complains and rants, without objection, as if he were arguing with himself.
Oddly enough, the video went viral and amassed 7.2 million views.
If you haven’t already seen it—and I imagine some of you have—I recommend taking a few minutes to watch it HERE.
It’s a curious spectacle, one that is ultimately meaningless in the grand scheme of your life or even the world at large, but nonetheless highlights some of the more unsavory parts of our human nature.
Why do we get so angry at random inconveniences throughout the day? And why do certain things bother us so tremendously, while we simply brush off other things without a second thought?
Throughout the video, it seems as though the angry man is projecting his own feelings of inadequacy and insecurity rather than genuinely directing his frustrations at the trumpet player. Amid his tirades of degradation and anger, he repeatedly feels compelled to highlight his own accomplishments, almost as if constructing a façade of ethos. But why? I have to imagine that all the nasty things he says about the trumpet player are really reflections of how he feels about himself.
And that’s why I love this video.
It’s a stark reminder that we are often driven by our own worst impulses—years or decades of unchecked habits and insecurities shaping the foundational pillars of our behavior. That is, unless we learn to actively confront and manage those impulses.
I felt compelled to dig deeper and learn more about this enigmatic man. I discovered his name is Douglas Levinson and eventually came across an interview from a year ago (10 years after the outburst), in which he discusses his reaction to the viral video. After watching it, I got the sense that he enjoys the attention the video has brought him, despite it casting a negative light on his character. However, he does claim that the temper tantrum was a one-time incident, explaining that he “just felt very strongly about the circumstances and let it rip.”
When a moment like this randomly goes viral, it often gets remixed or memed in countless ways across social media and beyond. One of the most fascinating aspects of our current media landscape is how much of it is mixed media—created, edited, and transformed by random users on the internet.
A couple weeks ago, I was messing around with some synths in Logic. When I finished putting the short song together, I thought to myself, “I wish I had an audio clip of someone freaking the f*ck out that I could layer over this.” And then it hit me—I suddenly remembered this video of the trumpet confrontation. It was perfect.
I cobbled together a video to accompany the music, which you can watch HERE.
I’ll leave you with a quick anecdote from this past week:
On Thanksgiving Eve, I went out with a few high school friends. While I’m no longer a recent college graduate, this night has become an unofficial tradition for many college students and young adults. It’s a chance to reconnect with high school friends who are home for the holiday. The night is often chaotic and lively, full of long waits at crowded bars, blacked out twenty-something-year-olds, and a mix of nostalgia and awkward reunions.
At one point, I found myself in a bar heading up the stairs to the second floor, where the bathroom was located. At the base of the stairs, a young guy—probably around twenty-one—was standing with his buddies. As I passed him, he turned to me and said, “If you go up there, you’re gay.”
I ignored him at first, choosing to continue up the stairs. But when I reached the top, I impulsively turned around and flipped him the bird. He and his friends erupted in laughter.
Almost immediately, I regretted giving him the finger. They had set the bait, and I’d taken it.
The encounter left me wondering: What if someone had recorded that moment and posted it online? What if I became known as the “guy who gave the finger in that one video”?
Who are we, really, if not the sum of our choices in moments both big and small?