Viking Guy With Two Battle Axes Jumping Off a Snowy Cliff

Submission 6,391

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About

Viking Guy With Two Battle Axes Jumping Off a Snowy Cliff is a viral video of a shirtless man in only his underwear screaming and jumping off a snowy cliff into a body of water below while holding two battle axes. The man has been likened to a Viking, a Norseman and Kratos from God of War. The original video was posted to Instagram in early 2023 by Norwegian fitness influencer Ken Stornes. Going into 2023, many added humorous captions to the video on X / Twitter and iFunny, among other platforms, leading to memes and GIF captions in September 2023.

Origin

On February 5th, 2023, Instagram^[1] user @kenstornes posted a Reel of himself jumping off a snowy cliff into a body of water below while holding two battle axes. Over the course of seven months, the video gained roughly 4.6 million plays and 247,000 likes (shown below).

The video's first-known usage in a meme was posted by X^[2] user @drewdyck on February 8th, 2023, who captioned the video, "Here’s my entrance the next time I speak at a men’s conference …" gaining roughly 6,200 likes in seven months (shown below).

Spread

Soon after, the format spread on iFunny, evident in a post shared by iFunnier^[3] @yeshmesh1 on February 11th, 2023, who captioned it, "My grandpa with dementia 5 seconds into being unsupervised at the Grand Canyon," gaining over 60 smiles in seven months (shown below, left).

A month later, on March 15th, iFunnier^[4] @warden_Fox reposted the video, gaining over 630 smiles in six months. Around the same time, on March 13th, iFunnier^[5] @Reijozen captioned the video, "My infant son, as soon as I step away from the changing table," gaining roughly 12,000 smiles in six months (shown below, right).

On March 12th, 2023, X^[6] user @visegrad24 posted the video, captioning it, "The Russians claimed that the Scandinavians would be freezing this winter. This Norwegian man doesn’t look bothered," gaining over 199,000 likes in seven months.

Going into 2023, the memes and reposts spread to both TikTok^[7] and YouTube.^[8] For example, on June 10th, 2023, iFunnier^[9] @brongulus posted a re-edit of the video, showing the guy jumping into Hyperborea. @brongulus captioned the image in relation to Ted Kaczynski's Death, gaining roughly 10,800 smiles in three months (shown below).

On September 22nd, 2023, X^[10] user @imgamingrn1 posted a sped-up GIF of the original video, captioning it, "this gif is so fucking funny," receiving roughly 44,000 likes in four days (shown below, left). The post inspired multiple quotes, including one posted by X^[11] user @FunnyTerro on September 24th, who wrote, "Does anyone know what you have to search to get this gif," gaining roughly 99,300 likes in two days (shown below, right).