Exploding watermelon stunt
On April 8, 2016, the website BuzzFeed streamed a live stunt on Facebook of two people wrapping a watermelon with rubber bands until it exploded. The event was notable for drawing a very large online audience, for a very silly event.
BuzzFeed Event
The event began around 3pm (Eastern United States time).[1] During the 45-minute stream, the event peaked at over 800,000 live watchers, and the resulting video of the event garnered million of views.[2] The event was parodied a few days later on The Tonight Show; [3] that show had attempted the stunt in September 2015 with Olivia Wilde but cut the segment short as it was taking too long.[4]
The event generated discussion of the future of journalism where such silly events can garner so much attention.[5][6][7][8][9]
Challenge origin
The concept of putting rubber bands around a watermelon until it explodes first became popular on the internet as early as at least July 2012, when the stunt was filmed by The Slow Mo Guys with a very high frame-rate camera, [10][11] but earlier videos date back at least to 2008.[12]
References
- ^ (11 April 2016). Why BuzzFeed Exploding A Watermelon On Facebook Is Not The Future Of TV, International Business Times
- ^ Nashrulla, Tasneem (8 April 2016). We Blew Up A Watermelon And Everyone Lost Their Freaking Minds, BuzzFeed
- ^ Holub, Christian (14 April 2016). Jimmy Fallon parodies exploding watermelon video with 'Chicago Melon', Entertainment Weekly
- ^ Goldstein, Ian (26 September 2015). Jimmy Fallon and Olivia Wilde try to make a watermelon explode on The Tonight Show, Entertainment Weekly
- ^ Rutenburg, Jim (18 April 2016). For News Outlets Squeezed From the Middle, It’s Bend or Bust, The New York Times
- ^ Castillo, Michelle (8 April 2006). The future of TV: 800K watch a watermelon explode, CNBC
- ^ Kleinburg, Scott (!3 April 2016). What an exploding watermelon teaches us about social media, Chicago Tribune
- ^ (8 April 2016). 7 TV Shows With Fewer Viewers Than BuzzFeed’s Exploding Watermelon Video, Wired
- ^ Hathaway, Jay (8 April 2016). Welp, the future of Facebook is exploding watermelons, The Daily Dot
- ^ Dicker, Ron. Rubber Bands Make Watermelon Explode — From ‘Slow Mo Guys’ (VIDEO), Huffington Post
- ^ Wrenn, Eddie (23 July 2012). The 'Slo Mo Guys' left red-faced after wrapping 500 elastic bands around a watermelon and recording the resulting explosion, Daily Mail
- ^ (16 July 2012). Exploding a Watermelon With Rubber Bands, Laughing Squid