About

Transit Fight Videos are amateur footage of altercation or arguments that take place while on public transportation. The videos are typically disseminated through sites like YouTube, Liveleak, and World Star Hip Hop.

Origin

Online videos of fights on public transit became increasingly common in the late 2000s with the rise of video-recording mobile phones and video-sharing sites. The earliest known viral videos of public bus brawls came from the Chinese-speaking web in May 2006 with a video titled "Hong Kong Bus Uncle", which shows 51-year-old Roger Chan berating 23-year-old Elvis Ho on a bus in Hong Kong after being touched on the shoulder.

Spread

April 2008: Soulja Girl

On April 7th, 2008, 25-year-old Nafiza Zayid was video taped harassing a senior citizen while on a train in Atlanta, Georgia. On May 8th, 2008, YouTuber britneyslut uploaded the video of Zayid threatening the woman while singing a modified version of the song "Crank Dat" by Soulja Boy (shown below). After another passenger urges Zayid to calm down, she begins to accuse the man of raping her before screaming hysterically causing a passenger to remove her hat. Within four years, the video accumulated over 1.6 million views.

October 2009: San Francisco Muni Bus Fight

On October 7th, 2009, an argument broke out between two female passengers on the 20 Columbus line of San Francisco Muni Bus, which quickly escalated into a violent altercation. The chaotic scene was captured on mobile camera by another passenger on the bus and uploaded onto YouTube, where it went viral with nearly 2.6 million views in the first three years.

February 2010: Epic Beard Man

On February 16th, 2010, a video of an older white man fighting a younger black man on a bus in Oakland, California was uploaded to YouTube by college student Iyanna Washington (shown below). The white man, who was dubbed "Epic Beard Man" on 4chan, was identified as Oakland resident Thomas Bruso, known for his reputation of belligerence. Within three years, the video accumulated over 5.9 million views.

October 2010: Bloody Loco

On October 25th, 2010, YouTuber nmboito uploaded a video titled "Guy on subway flipping out," featuring a ponytail-wearing man calling himself "Bloody Loco" verbally abusing a passenger on a New York City subway train (shown below). In March of 2011, the book reading passenger identifying himself as Daniel was interviewed by Gawker, who revealed that Bloody Loco called him a "pussy" after accidentally bumping into his leg. After replying with "I am what I eat," Loco began insulting him.

November 2011: My Tram Experience

On November 17th, 2011, YouTuber ladyk89 uploaded a video titled My Tram Experience, featuring footage of an English woman making various racist statements and ordering other passengers to "go back where you came from", while riding a tram in London (shown below). The same day, the British newspapers reported that the woman in the video was placed under arrest by British law enforcement, sparking a debate about the fairness of prosecution for hate speech in the blogosphere and Twitter. In the following months, several other videos emerged of London train passengers ranting about foreigners in the United Kingdom.

October 2012: Cleveland Bus Driver's Uppercut

On October 11th, 2012, a video began circulating on various websites showing a Cleveland bus driver delivering an uppercut punch to a disgruntled female passenger. On the following day, The Smoking Gun^[1] published an article titled "Police Reports Detail Cleveland Bus Uppercut," which reported that the bus driver was 59-year-old Artis Hughes, who claimed that the uppercut was in retaliation to being grabbed in the throat and spit on. The female passenger was identified as 25-year-old Shi'dea Lane.

October 2012: Sydney CityRail Fight

On October 26th, 2012, a passenger filmed a young woman abusing other passengers by swearing and spitting at them, while on a CityRail train in Sydney, Australia. After a few minutes of shouting, a number of commuters (mostly young men) banded together and physically threw the woman from the train onto a station platform. The incident was reported on Australian media, and the original video gained a million views within three days.

Search Interest

External References