Falsehoods spread more easily and more widely in today’s techno future, where social media allows the masses to a) read total nonsense then b) find lots of others who buy the same bull. Often times said misinformation is bad, dangerous. Other times it’s all in good fun. Of the latter breed, take the following recent viral video.
give this girl the cy young for hitting mike pence in the melon with a water balloon pic.twitter.com/vfurgNF8Z6
— belt sanderson (@avoidthehanoid) July 14, 2023
It shows a parade somewhere featuring a man with a blindingly white head of hair marching down the street surrounded by others. People don’t appear to happy with the paraders. Someone throws a water balloon, which lands well behind the man with the white hair. Then a little girl shoots her shot. She scores, hitting said man directly in his head. He walks it off while the little girl chuckles, proud of herself.
Could the man with the blindingly white hair be former vice president and current presidential candidate Mike Pence? That’s what someone on social media claimed. (The answer, by the way, is no, but more on that later.) As the video spread online, jokes flowed. “give this girl the cy young for hitting mike pence in the melon with a water balloon,” one person wrote.
Others, making Jan. 6 and Mets jokes, followed.
j6 guys rotting in jail didn’t get this close lmao https://t.co/rBNNAIy4jO
— Sam Knight (@samknight1) July 14, 2023
Per source: The Mets have offered her a lifetime contract. https://t.co/v4iRimTatK
— Mark Gooden (@TooGooden17) July 14, 2023
so much about this video is incredible. not just the absolute laser shot, but her smirk afterward, the casual toss of the other water balloon, the random dude on the right being like “uhhh we just gonna let this happen?” just A+ content here https://t.co/mxjDss2u1x
— Tim Backes (@timbackes) July 14, 2023
Alas, it’s pretty obvious this isn’t Mike Pence getting dinged with a water balloon. For one, we not only never see the man with white hair’s face, but he’s very, very far from the camera.
Sure enough, it was soon confirmed that that was definitely not Mike Pence. As per Mediaite, the video was filmed at the annual Stewart Manor July Fourth parade on Long Island. The doused man was at least a politican: He’s Bruce Blankman, a Nassau County executive. The revelers weren’t venting frustration, though: It’s tradition for the parade to end in a water balloon battle.
Blankman himself joked about getting hit in the head, writing about his water balloon assailant, “The Mets and Yankees could certainly use her!”
The @Mets and @Yankees could certainly use her! pic.twitter.com/2U6HiOErq2
— Bruce Blakeman (@NassauExec) July 12, 2023
Not that Pence hasn’t been dunked on recently. It just hasn’t been with water. Back in May he was roundly mocked on social media for a very strange trip to Dunkin’.
(Via Mediaite)