Belle Isle Giant Slide

Submission 7,211

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

About

Belle Isle Giant Slide is an attraction comprised of a large metal slide with bumps or waves on it located in Detroit, Michigan that went viral in mid-2022 after a video was posted showing riders careening down it at high speeds. The multi-tiered slide is intended to be ridden in a potato sack while the tiers (waves) are intended to slow riders down. However, in the videos, their high speeds sent them flying off each tier and crashing onto the next one. The attraction has closed and reopened several times after the video went viral as workers made adjustments in an attempt to mitigate riders' speeds.

Origin

The Belle Isle Giant Slide has been an attraction in Detroit since the 1960s.^[1] Though infamous among locals for decades, the slide attracted viral attention following an August 19th, 2022, tweet by user @Artcombatpod^[2] that showed riders careening down the slide and slamming on every tier of the slide. Twitter user @Artcombatpod reported the ride was shut down after four hours of operating in a similar fashion that day. Their tweet gained over 11,000 retweets and 92,000 likes, while the video itself gained over 11 million views in five days after various reposts.

Spread

The August 2022 video sparked widespread discussion on social media, as many users expressed surprise that such an apparently dangerous ride was operating while others found it hilarious. On August 19th, 2022, Twitter user @JoeConchaTV^[3] was one of several users who was reminded of the infamous Action Park in New Jersey, which was closed due in part to the numerous injuries that occurred there^[4] (JoeConchaTV tweet shown below, left). Twitter user @Ugarles^[5] joked that those who watched with the sound off were doing themselves a "disservice," as the sound of laughing and crashing heightened the comedy in the video. Their tweet gained over 430 retweets and 4,000 likes in three days (shown below, right).

Detroiters familiar with the giant slide expressed a range of experiences with the ride, as some joked it was "working as intended" and that it "builds character." On August 20th, 2022, Twitter user @KarenDumas^[6] wrote that kids didn't know the proper way to ride the slide like adults, jokingly implying it was the kids' fault for flying down it (shown below, left). Twitter user @dst6n01^[7] joked, "You haven’t had a real 313 childhood unless you bounced down the Slide and got a 3rd degree let burn on a summer’s day" (shown below, right).

Former NBA player Jalen Rose, a Detroit native, expressed that the viral video echoed his experiences with the slide that he'd had as a child (shown below). His tweet, posted on August 22nd, received over 900 likes in less than 24 hours.

Jalen Rose @JalenRose wants you all to know the Giant Slide was always dangerous🤣🤣He said Belle Isle's savage Giant Slide made him who he is today. "We thought that was normal. So, I'm glad now that it's gone viral & people see this." 😂 pic.twitter.com/YukZ9DSJ5q

— Jeanna Trotman (@JeannaTrotmanTV) August 22, 2022

In a TikTok posted on August 22nd, user @jonnyducati demonstrated how to properly ride the slide to avoid careening like those in the viral video, receiving nearly 40 likes in less than 24 hours (seen below).

So all these videos where folks are fighting gravity and this man went down smooth as hell. pic.twitter.com/a3QnykOqdg

— TODD C. BUTLER (@todd_butler) August 22, 2022

After closing down the slide, the team behind it came up with a plan to coat the slide in wax and hose it down between rides in order to slow riders down.^[8]