It seemed like all the internet was talking about this morning was the viral video of Professor Robert Kelly’s Skype interview with the BBC being interrupted when his children walk into the room. If by some miracle you haven’t seen the clip, here it is:
The entire thing is perfect: the way Kelly’s very serious answer about South Korean president Park Geun-hye being ousted from power is interrupted by the interviewer saying “I think one of your children’s just walked in”; his daughter’s dance, which proves she doesn’t care at all that she’s interrupting Daddy’s big moment; the baby rolling in on the bouncer; and Kelly’s wife frantically scrambling to get the children out of the room and then doing a ninja crawl to close the door.
Kelly, an associate professor of international relations at South Korea’s Pusan University, tweeted after the interview that he hoped this video wouldn’t be “the kinda thing that goes ‘viral’ and gets weird,” but it was too late for that—the clip set social media on fire:
Coming into the office on a Friday like pic.twitter.com/MCpmOvDEU2
— Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff) March 10, 2017
I don't do TV interviews from home. Because this. https://t.co/bKUcFpZMDW
— Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) March 10, 2017
https://twitter.com/redsteeze/status/840199094064828416
Not surprisingly, the video also made its way to the Reddit homepage, where it’s been upvoted almost 72,000 times.
A few redditors criticized Kelly for pushing his daughter away instead of doing something more paternal like picking her up and putting her on his lap.
“He blindly tries to push the kid back with a palm to the face,” OniExpress wrote. “Guy had an opportunity to make this look good, and he blew it.”
But these haters were vastly outnumbered by the number of people who had sympathy for Kelly—because they all assumed he wasn’t wearing pants.
“His complete lack of movement makes me wonder if he’s wearing any trousers,” ben0wn4g3 wrote.
“I work from home and sometimes we have to do video chats so I’ll wear a nice shirt and yoga pants,” Spiwolf7 added. “Just don’t stand up lol.”
But the award for best comment goes to Mitt_Romney_USA, whose perspective on the event was far less wholesome than his username would suggest. Here’s his story, in all its glory:
“I usually wear ‘public friendly garb’ but no lie, I have Skyped into meetings in a button down shirt and jacket with pajama pants, boxer briefs or just grubby work jeans hidden by my desktop.
Never done one full commando, but only because I would be terrified to accidentally let my clients see how weirdly pear-shaped my penis is. It’s an embarrassment.
Bonus admission: I routinely join phone conferences and webinars where I won’t be on camera while pooping.
It’s a rush. You have to be 100 percent ON your mute button game. If I’m ever feeling unsure I test my mute status by trying to butt in and interrupt someone.
If nobody responds, I’m golden. Poop away, flush, wash hands, whatever. If they let me talk I hold off on dropping a spluttery deuce or flushing, and ask the last person who was talking to repeat themselves, citing line noise or spotty signal.
If you’re going to try this at home, make sure you mute out strategically. Wait until someone is about to launch into a rant or long update before you flush so you have time to mute, test mute status, go on speakerphone, wipe, flush and wash hands before touching the phone again.
Otherwise you WILL give your wife pink eye again.”
It’s hard to pick the best part of this, but the pear-shaped penis, the phrase “dropping a spluttery deuce” and the kicker about pink eye are all in the running.
Romney’s fellow redditors were all suitably disturbed, but his anecdote proved a point: no matter how innocent the content is, the internet will quickly find a way to make it dirty.
