About

"I'd Be Crying If I Looked Like That Too Bruh," continued "That's Fucked up What They Be Doing to You," is a memorable quote from a viral 2018 video of social media user Quai James teasing a young Hasidic Jewish boy for his haircut. The video quickly spread after it was posted that May, resulting in controversy over the way the man is speaking to the young boy. James apologized for the video that same month after facing backlash.

Origin

Around May 7th, 2018, social media user Quai James posted a video to Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat showing a sad-looking, young, Hasidic Jewish boy with a traditional Hasidic haircut standing in the middle of the road. James tells the boy how he'd be "crying too" if his hair looked like that, and how he finds it "fucked up" how they cut his hair. In the caption, he wrote, "Had to really let my son know how I felt about the whole Jewish Haircut . . . Pray for the lil homie." The original uploads have since been removed (reupload shown below).^[1]

The video quickly went viral, garnering hundreds of thousands of views in a day and being reposted numerous times across social media platforms.

Spread

Apology

On May 8th, 2018, James posted a video to Twitter^[3] apologizing to the family, the boy and for the video in general after receiving backlash for mocking the child for his haircut (shown below). The video gained over 521,000 views and 8,400 likes in a year. In the video, James makes it clear he has nothing against Jewish people, and the video was only meant to make fun of the haircut and get clout, calling the video "childish."

Good afternoon to everyone watching .. I’m truly sorry for my actions .. @FonrougeGab pic.twitter.com/HaO4cwGaWN

— Quailoe James (@quaijames) May 8, 2018

On May 9th, The New York Post^[2] published an article about James' video going viral and about his apology. On May 14th, James conducted an interview with Forward about the incident (shown below).

Continued Spread

Despite the controversy, the video continued to spread online, becoming the subject of video edits and becoming an original sound on TikTok in the following years.

On August 10th, 2019, Instagram^[5] user @distortedvideos posted a distorted version of the video, garnering over 28,700 views in two years (shown below).

On April 17th, 2020, YouTuber^[4] Eckhart posted a video mashing up the audio from James' video with footage from the anime series Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, garnering over 11,000 views in a year (shown below).

On May 27th, 2021, TikToker^[6] @andyc.21202 posted the video, garnering over 12.9 million views in five days. The upload inspired over 600 TikTokers^[7][8] to use the original sound over the course of the next five days, many recreating the video but showing off their own "ugly" haircut or style (popular examples shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References