Okay, it might sound like a stretch to say that an iPhone video of a very drunk-seeming Toronto mayor Rob Ford wandering the streets of his city during last night’s Taste of Danforth proves conclusively that Bigfoot doesn’t exist but hear me out.
For a long time now there have been rumours of drunken Rob Ford showing up at public events and making an ass of himself but so far the only evidence we’ve had that publicly drunken Rob Ford exists are some eye-witness accounts and some blurry, unflattering photos.
In other words, it’s exactly the same kind of evidence as we have for Bigfoot. Or the Ogopogo or the Skunk Ape or any other cryptid.
And so a serious and sober Mayor Rob Ford and his serious and sober staff have been able to deny the existence of Publicly Drunken Rob Ford Embarrassing Himself (and allegedly grabbing a female politician’s backside and maybe possibly even smoking crack) because the evidence is so flimsy.
“Oh, those people are just out to get me,” he can say. Or, “The Star has a vendetta against my family.” Or, “That picture just caught my bad side.”
And then one can point to this graph from the very excellent webcomic xkcd and say, “If everybody’s walking around with iPhones all the time why hasn’t anyone captured this mythical Drunken Rob Ford on video? Seeing as they haven’t, he must not exist. Or, at least, he isn’t as drunk as all these haters, rumourmongers and Star reporters are saying.”
Well, now someone has. Actually, now A LOT of people have captured what appears to be the elusive Drunken Rob Ford on video and posted his hilarious antics on Youtube for all to see. (There are eyewitness reports and more video and pictures at Now Magazine.)
What’s next? Will we get video of Texting And Driving Rob Ford? Ass Grabbing Rob Ford? Smoking Crack And Saying Racist Things Rob Ford? Who knows?
Meanwhile, poor Bigfoot. Because, as Drunken Rob Ford has shown, if something exists, it will eventually wind up on Youtube. And if cryptids were real, we’d have crystal clear video of Bigfoot arm-in-arm with drunken back-country hikers. There’d be shakily framed footage of American tourists feeding stout to the Loch Ness Monster. We’d all be laughing at the one where the Chupacabra is dressed up like a shark and riding a Roomba.
But none of those things are on Youtube so it’s a safe bet none of those creatures exist either. Drunken Rob Ford, on the other hand, is as real as the coelacanth and giant squid.
The Future is indeed a strange and marvellous time in which to be living.
