Circle K Twisted Tea Fight

Overview

Circle K Twisted Tea Fight refers to a video taken at a Circle K in Elyria, Ohio showing a white man yelling at a black man, calling him the n-word multiple times. After a verbal altercation, the man yelling is struck in the face with a can of Twisted tea, sending him backwards to the ground. After the men engage in a brief scuffle on the ground, the black man exits the store while the woman filming the altercation says, "I don't blame you, dude."

Background

On December 24th, 2020, at 2:02 AM, terencessb tweeted^[1] the video under the caption, "JeeeeeeZUS LMAOOOOOOOOOOOO," garnering over 1.6 million views and 41,000 likes in 4 days (shown below, left). Although this is the earliest upload of the video, terencessb is not the one who filmed it, which he clarifies in a comment under the original tweet, saying: "Hi! Couple things 1. This is NOT my video lmao I'm just simply sharing it to spread the joy of seeing a racist get his shit cooked 2. Just stop saying nigga if you're not black LMFAO it's literally not hard at all." The video was reportedly originally posted by Facebook ^[17] user Renee Ostermansugaski. She claims the video was removed by Facebook moderators, who suspended her account.

The video spread quickly across social media platforms. An hour after the original upload, D tW reuploaded the video to YouTube^[2] titled, "Racist Drunk Karen guy yells N Word and gets SMACKED with Twisted Tea Can" garnering over 2.2 million views in 4 days. The video description reads, "This is just what happened at Circle K on East Broad Street in Elyria I cannot believe it." On the same day the video was posted to /r/PublicFreakout,^[3] garnering over 80,000 upvotes and hundreds of Reddit awards in 4 days. The daily dot^[4] published a story on the incident that day at 10:23 AM, and Snoop Dogg reposted it to his Instagram^[16] page, garnering over 1.6 million views.

Developments

At 9:53 AM on December 24th, BluSznTTV tweeted^[6] a comment under terencessb's video saying, "I’m like 100% positive I went to school with the white kid. He used to act the same way and looks the same. If it ain’t him then he’s got a twin." He commented again with a photograph of the suspected person (shown below). On December 25th, Elyria Chronicle-Telegram^[9] published a story detailing the incident, in which they claim the fight was never reported to the police. On December 26th, over_boiled tweeted^[7] a selfie from the Circle K in Elyria with the man who did the smacking, garnering over 450 likes and 50 retweets in 2 days (shown below, right).

On the same day, mauricesims1 tweeted^[10] a photo of the Cirlcle K where the video took place (shown below). On December 28th, Heavy^[8] published an article on the incident.

Impact

Users began making memes and remixes out of the video hours after it was posted to Twitter. For example, on December 24th, MaestroKnux tweeted^[5] a remix of the racist getting smacked set to the bells from "Please Come Home for Christmas" garnering over 12,500 views in 4 days (shown below).

On December 25th, _Rellmani posted another remix to Twitter,^[11] garnering over 94,000 views and 3,800 likes in 3 days (shown below).

On December 27th, JonyBeats tweeted^[12] "When the cop asks me if I have any weapons in my car" along with an image of a Twisted Tea in the glovebox, garnering over 150 retweets and 450 likes in 1 day (shown below, left). On the same day, J2frosty318 tweeted^[13] "Attachment, unlocked" above an image of a man holding a gun with a can of Twisted Tea taped to it, garnering over 70 retweets and 295 likes in 1 day (shown below, right).

On December 28th, OG RON posted an image macro referencing the Twisted Tea smack to Facebook,^[14] garnering over 11,000 shares and 7,200 reactions on the same day (shown below, left). On the same day, Hey there memes it's me Ya Boi posted another meme referencing the incident to Facebook,^[15] garnering over 3,300 shares and 2,200 reactions on the same day (shown below, right).

After the video went viral, users flocked to post memes in the comment sections of recent posts. Some users tweeted at Twisted Tea saying that they're missing out on a marketing opportunity by not talking about the video.

Search Interest

External References