Back Up Terry / Put It In Reverse Terry

Submission 7,552

Part of a series on Viral Videos. [View Related Entries]

About

Back Up Terry, also known as Put It In Reverse Terry or Back It Up Terry, refers to a viral video of a man named Terry in a wheelchair who couldn't back up from fireworks that were set off on the 4th of July. The video was originally uploaded to YouTube in 2017. It quickly gained viral reposts and eminence soon after, leading to its resurgence every 4th of July.

Origin

On July 5th, 2017, YouTuber^[1] Woo posted a video of a man named Terry lighting fireworks on a road. Terry was in a motorized wheelchair and after he lit the fireworks, his wheelchair seemingly malfunctioned and he couldn't move. Meanwhile, the camera man was shouting to him, "Back up, back up Terry! Put it in reverse Terry!" The video received roughly 949,000 views and 52,000 likes in six years (shown below).

Years later, after the video's virality, context was given to the clip. The man recording the video was named Eldraco Wooten and Terry was his cousin Antario "Terry" Davis.^[2] His wheelchair did malfunction, however, he was not harmed in the making of the video.^[3]

Spread

Later on July 5th, 2017, the video was quickly reposted by YouTuber^[4] Ronalf, whose repost gained more engagement than the original, receiving roughly 14.8 million views and 378,000 likes in six years. Other, viral reposts quickly surfaced on Twitter^[5] as well. In July 2019, multiple news outlets reached out to Terry to report on how his life had changed. For instance, on July 5th, 2019, news outlet KCAU-TV Sioux City posted a video to YouTube^[6] in which they interviewed Terry about him receiving a new wheelchair from donations caused by the video's success. The video received roughly 420,000 views and 9,400 likes in four years (shown below).

Going into 2019, the video received memetic exploitation from meme creators that inserted Terry into other settings and scenarios. For instance, on July 15th, 2019, YouTuber^[7] Gam :D posted a Minecraft iteration, gaining roughly 4,300 views in four years (shown below, left). On December 28thh, 2019, YouTuber^[8] fatcat posted a Super Mario 64 iteration originally created by Instagram^[9] user @ins.step (since deleted), gaining roughly 22,900 views in four years (shown below, right).

The video continued to gain eminence going into the 2020s, spreading to other video platforms like TikTok. For instance, on July 3rd, 2022, TikToker^[10] @joemartel3 posted a video that recreated the original video, gaining roughly 45.6 million plays and 3.9 million likes in one year (shown below).