A TikTok user (BonoKaiser) thought he was making comedy when he included footage of the Beirut blast in one of his videos of “a normal day in 2021”.
The blast, considered one of the biggest non-nuclear explosions in history, ripped through Beirut on August 4th, 2020, taking the lives of over 200 people, injuring over 6,000, maiming over a thousand, and rendering 300,000 residents homeless.
How that TikToker assumed that such a massive tragedy could possibly be an element of a comedy video is beyond human comprehension. It is one of the worst tragedies to befall the Lebanese people who, in plus, are still seeking justice and closure.
The TikToker sided the clip of the Beirut blast alongside clips of a UFO, a zombie apocalypse – exaggerating that the blast seemed very unworldly, whereas it was a real-life mass tragedy.
In the video, he looked out his window and sarcastically pretend to experience what it was like to have “a normal day in 2021”.
It’s worth mentioning, besides that the blast happened in 2020 and not 2021, that had he been really looking out at the Beirut blast, he, his blue robe, and coffee mug would have been torn to shreds. There would have been nothing left of his home, and certainly not him to make that video.
Nevertheless, the video went viral on his account, gaining 12 million views despite how offensive it was to Lebanese and non-Lebanese alike.
On Instagram, it was featured on a meme account ‘saltybube‘ where someone wrote, “I understand [this] may be a joke to some of [y’all] but that explosion should not have been [included].”
A Lebanese Instagrammer named Clarissa Jabbour was shocked at the post, writing:
“OMGG REALLYY ?? DID YOU RRALLYY USED VIDEO OF A DISASTER A VIDEO OF SOMETHING THAT KILLED US ????? OMG 🤦 IF IT DIDN’T KILLED OUR BODY, IT KILLED OUR [MENTAL] HEALTH, OUR HEART …”
Needless to say that some people would do and use anything, even standing on the still-warm graves of slain innocent people, just to gain some little fame or make some extra cents from their post going viral.
A wise man once said that the freedom of a person stops at the boundary of the freedom of another, if not humanly at least morally and ethically.
That TikTok video is not only offensive but hurtful to many bereaved families who are still waking up daily in tears and angrily protesting in the streets for justice. It is also a cruel revival of a massive trauma lived by the survivors in particular and by a whole nation in general.