Editor's Note: The video clip described here contains an uncensored suicide. Viewer discretion advised.

About

The Budd Dwyer Suicide Video is a video of the late Pennsylvania State Treasurer Robert "Budd" Dwyer committing suicide via a gunshot to the head at a 1987 press conference. The video became a popular shock video in the earlier days of the Internet.

Origin

Robert "Budd" Dwyer was the Pennsylvania State Treasurer. He was convicted on accounts of bribery in 1986, though though he consistently claimed innocence. On January 22, 1987, a day before his sentencing was to take place, Dwyer committed suicide during a press conference by shooting a revolver through his mouth.^[1]

Spread

The original clip had circulated widely before the Internet became widespread, for example, in the 1993 shockumentary Traces of Death_ . On October 30, 2006, it was uploaded to LiveLeak. It currently sits at the seventh most viewed video on the website, with over 3 million hits.^[2] An Urban Dictionary definition for "Budd Dwyer" was submitted earlier that year on August 3.^[3] In 2011, an Encyclopedia Dramatica article was created, detailing the incident and classifying Dwyer as an hero. ^[4] The first known YouTube upload of the suicide which can still be found today was uploaded on April 25, 2012, though it differs from the most popular upload in that it uses footage from a different camera.^[5]

Reaction Videos

The clip became a shock video in a similar vein as 2 Girls, 1 Cup. Several reaction videos have been posted of users reacting to seeing the suicide. One of the first of these was uploaded on January 21, 2009. ^[6]

Search Trends

References