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A recent TikTok video of an elderly Tennessee man threatening two young fishermen and breaking one of their rods has sent the internet into a frenzy. The footage has spawned multiple follow-up videos and an attempted doxing. It’s the latest (but certainly not the first) example of the transgressive, violent encounters that sometimes occur between public fishermen and private landowners.
TikTok user and fishing content creator @fishn_shi posted the original video on July 3, along with the following caption: “Drunk Karen breaks my $200 St. Croix fishing pole.” The user did not respond to a request for comment, so many details behind the incident remain unclear.
Fishn_shi recorded the video on his phone and can be heard in the background as the older man confronts him and his friend on the shore of a lake in Knoxville. The name of the lake and its owner are unknown, but fishn_shi wrote in a comment that it is located in the Admirals Landing neighborhood. Several large homes in the suburbs are visible in the background and at least two other homeowners were involved in the confrontation.
The older man is already agitated at the beginning of the roughly minute-long clip. He appears drunk (and at one point admits to having had a drink earlier). As the two boys film on their phones, he approaches fishn_shi’s buddy, grabs a fishing rod from the boy’s hand, and breaks the rod over his own leg. The man continues to hurl insults while repeatedly claiming that the boys are trespassing on the private lake nearby.
Read more: Watch: Landowner tells kayaker that fishing is not allowed on ‘his’ side of the river
However, the video is heavily edited and it is unclear what exactly caused the rod to snap. Due to the popularity of the original video — it has been viewed nearly 19 million times in less than a week — fishn_shi shared additional clips on July 6 and 7. Titled Part 2 And Part 3The videos show more of the confrontation that followed.
In part 2, two other homeowners accuse the boys of trespassing and lie about their names, while the older man continues to try to chase them away. At one point, the older woman calls the rod-breaker “the president,” presumably of the local homeowners association. She says he’s “lived here for years” and “knows everyone who lives here.”
The boys appear to remain calm during the confrontation. But a short clip from Part 3 shows that they were not afraid to incite the older man.
“You’re right, I’ve been drinking. Is that against the law, you dumb shit?” the old man says in part 3 after one of the boys claims to smell alcohol on his breath. The boy then says that they’ll wait for the police to arrive, and the man says that he will. He also threatens to break one of their fishing rods in half if they cast it into the lake again.
“No, you’re not. Because the police are going to charge you… We’re going to show the police this video and you’re going to be arrested,” one of the boys says. “I can’t wait to see you walk away in handcuffs.”
The young fisherman then casts a cast, and the old man does as he threatened. He takes the rod from the boy’s hand and swats him across his thigh like a stick.
At several points in the videos, the man threatens to call the police and press charges against the young fishermen. The videos do not show how (or if) the situation was resolved, and it is unclear whether anyone was charged with a crime. However, two self-proclaimed Internet investigators have attempted to get to the bottom of the controversy.
Read more: In a tale as old as the West, wealthy Californians moved to Montana and blocked the historic access to the river
On July 6, TikTok user @TizzyEnt shared a video message analyzes fishn_shi’s videos. He defends the two young fishermen and calls the older man “a drunk, arrogant, impetuous [sic] child.” Along with several other social media users who have shared their opinions on various posts, he claims the boys were not trespassing on the private lake nearby – either because they had permission to fish or because relatives lived there.
“I spoke to the young man,” said TizzyEnt, who claims he sent fishn_shi a $250 Bass Pro Shops gift card to replace the broken rod. “His parents came and refused to press charges against [the older man]. They could have charged him because he is the one who destroyed their property and attacked them.”
In addition to providing commentary, TizzyEnt identifies the older man in the video by drawing attention to another sequel video shared by Danesh, a content creator and YouTuber who identifies people online (also known as doxing). Danesh claims the older man is a Knoxville resident named Matt Webster, who works at United Community Bank and chairs a local outreach program in Haiti. He also claims Webster has since deleted his social media profiles. These claims are unconfirmed.
Regardless, the doxing attempt has sparked a wave of social media-fueled vitriol aimed at Webster and those around him. It has also led to instances of misrepresentation, as at least two men named Matt Webster live in Knoxville. Earlier today, the national nonprofit Haiti Outreach wrote in a Facebook post that it has received a lot of hate mail, even though it has no connection to the elderly man in the video. Meanwhile, a man named Matt Webster, who works for United Community Bank in Knoxville, gave an update his LinkedIn profile to make it clear that he is “NOT THE FISHERMAN FROM THE SOCIAL MEDIA VIDEO.”
syndication@recurrent.io (Dac Collins)
