Although the internet is an ungovernable failed state, it tends to follow a handful of reliable maxims, including: If it's viral, it's fake. The world is not a delightfully chaotic content machine, it's really rather orderly and predictable for the most part, with a scant few innocent diversions offered up from time to time.
The most recent reminder of this arrived today in the form of a piece of video from Fox 5 news in Las Vegas. It was, for a brief shining moment, the most wonderful thing you would have seen all day. A new meme, Weather Boi, was born! And then, it was no more, because it was all a set up. The internet gods giveth and they taketh away.
In the video, Fox 5's Ted Pretty—whose very name I'm sort of doubting at this point—is delivering a report on a fireworks sale leading into the 4th of July weekend. In it, he finds a seemingly unassuming teen browsing through a fireworks catalogue outside, who then proceeds to rip his heart out.
"What's the best type of firework to buy?" Pretty asks.
And here's the moment, if you pause it, you can see his heart, Ralph Wiggum-like, being ripped from his chest.
"Wouldn't you like to know, weather boy?" the rude teen responds.
The clip is great for a number of reasons, not least of which because teens owning newscasters is as close to a pure American art form we have as jazz or binge-watching Property Brothers.
A closer look at more of the broadcast sort of gave the game away, however.
Pretty, in the longer clip, jokes about the boy's parents and respecting one's elders. That's right: Pretty is Weather Boi's father. Should have seen that coming—it was all a little too on the nose.
The broadcast, which aired Wednesday afternoon, hadn't yet gone viral when Pretty posted it to his Facebook page that night, he told Esquire. When he awoke, he was awash in notifications. Pretty spent the bulk of the morning responding to them with good humor, he said. The idea behind it was never to pull one over on people, he said. It was just a fun goof on an otherwise mostly unremarkable spot.
"You gotta understand I've been in this market 18 years, so a majority of our viewers know I'm a father of two kids," he explained. "It wasn't like I was trying to prank our viewers or make it look like it was not staged."
His son, 12 years old, has been in a live shot before. Yesterday he asked him if he wanted to tag along, as he knew some people running the fireworks booth, and they planned out their set up. The premise was his son's idea. "He said, why don't you ask me what's the best fireworks, and I'll say Wouldn't you like to know?'" Pretty came back over the top with the kicker.
Pretty says he's known for having a sense of humor on his spots, and people seeing it all over the country wouldn't be aware of that. "I keep having to remind myself that anybody who lives in Las Vegas would be able to put two and two together pretty quickly. It was just a joke. I'm getting a kick out of people who think I was trying to pull one over on the viewers."
The whole affair seems to have amused his bosses—from what he can tell at least; they're liking some of his banter on Twitter.
He doesn't know what his son thinks yet though, as he hasn't been home yet to talk to him since he left this morning.
"I think he'll get a kick out of it. I don't if it will really sink in that people across the country are seeing this. I know that's the goal de jour with kids these days…I think he'll think it's pretty cool," Pretty said. "He probably won't like the fact some people are calling him nasty names on social media thinking he's a smart ass, which he's not. He's got such a big heart, his comment here is so far out of his character."
All things considered, it could have been a lot worse. There are no shortage of people putting together stunts like this specifically to fool the world. Pretty said he agrees with the "if it's viral, it's fake" premise I mentioned.
"The minute I see something on social media, like you said, I quickly go into my jaded mode, like, almost prove to me this is real. I'm so jaded."
Luke O'Neil
Luke is a writer from Boston who writes the newsletter Welcome to Hell World and author of a book of the same name.
