Tony and Ezekiel

About

Tony and Ezekiel refers to a sketch comedy video by Max Forrest in which two men shout obscenities at each other from across a lake. One asks the other's name, which is Tony, and shouts, "F--k you!" Tony asks the other guy's name, which is Ezekiel, and yells "F--k you!" as well. The video became a popular subject of parodies on YouTube and TikTok in 2020.

Origin

On July 20th, 2013, YouTuber Max Forrest posted "Don't Talk To Strangers," a sketch in which two men shout obscenities at each other from across a lake. The video gained over 4.8 million views in 7 years (shown below).

Spread

On May 15th, 2020, TikTok user WilliamAveritt1 posted a video in which several men recreated the scene, gaining over 980,000 likes (YouTube reupload shown below).

It began growing more popular when users began to recreate the scene with animals. For example, user OB_kush posted a video showing a staredown between a dog and a deer while the audio played, gaining over 1.6 million likes (shown below).

The video was the most popular of several similar videos. Other popular examples include a video posted by anicole08 featuring a deer and a dog, gaining over 305,000 likes (shown below, left). User victoriabrown.2006 posted a video between two dogs, gaining over 220,000 likes (shown below, right). On August 5th, Ebaum's World^[1] published an article about the meme titled "'Tony and Ezekiel' TikTok Parodies Are Another Surprising 2020 Meme."

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References