Boston Cop Falling Down Slide Video

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

About

Boston Cop Falling Down Slide Video is a viral video of a police officer in Boston, Massachusetts falling down a metal slide at the City Hall Plaza playground near Congress St. downtown. The video was originally posted to Twitter on August 1st, 2023. It was allegedly filmed by other police officers. It quickly spread across social media to TikTok, Instagram and Facebook, among other platforms, where meme creators remixed it, re-edited it and added humorous captions. For instance, many people compared the video to a vending machine. It was announced by the Boston Police Department that the officer was hurt but "fine."

Origin

On August 1st, 2023, Twitter^[1] user @ryanwhitney6 posted a tweet (since deleted) that showed a Boston police officer falling feet first out of the metal slide at the City Hall Plaza playground. The video was seemingly filmed by other Boston police officers, seen in their uniforms with hi-vi vests. The video was deleted by @ryanwhitney6. According to him in a follow-up tweet,^[2] he was "begged to take it down" by an unknown person. Regardless, the tweet gained viral quote retweets from accounts such as Barstool Sports ^[3] on August 1st. The video was also downloaded and reshared to Imgur^[4] on August 1st (shown below).

Spread

The video's first repost was shared by TikToker^[5] @trappsta2 on August 1st, 2023, however, his video was also deleted despite various duets and stitches posted with it.^[6]^[7] The video was most notably reposted by the Twitter^[8] account @LiveBoston617 on August 1st, gaining roughly 21.2 million views and 57,400 likes in one day (shown below).

The video quickly gained memetic usage, such as a QRT posted by Twitter^[9] user @TylerIAm on August 1st, who captioned a screenshot with "Losing my mind over this," gaining roughly 9,100 likes in one day (shown below, left). Also on August 1st, Twitter^[10] user @afrocosmist posted a QRT that elaborately praised the video, gaining roughly 54,700 likes in one day (shown below, right).

Later on August 1st, Twitter^[11] user @DoingCigarettes tweeted a reversed version of the video, humorously writing, "Boston, MA – A Boston Police officer got sucked into a slide at a playground on Congress St downtown. Boston EMS is looking for the officer." The tweet gained over 113,000 likes in less than a day (shown below).

Other meme craters on TikTok also generated video memes, such as TikToker^[12] @skrekspinkie on August 1st, who added text to the video reading, "my soda coming out of an old as vending machine at the laundromat." The video received roughly 1.3 million plays and 327,500 likes in one day (shown below).

News Coverage

Other than the Twitter^[8] account of @LiveBoston617, various Boston-based news outlets shared articles and investigations about the video, such as the Boston Globe.^[13] The publication, and others like Boston 25 News,^[14] proclaimed that the officer was hurt but "fine" and also that the police department was not going to file an investigation into the matter.