Jeff Bezos lookalike bullied by TikTokers in viral trend
A video of a man who looks like Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos being heckled by a group of TikTokers went viral on the platform. But was soon pulled from the platform for violating the app's community guidelines against "bullying."
The clip in question has since been reposted to the "Public Freakouts" subreddit. In the video, the person filming the video says to the man who looks like Bezos: "Hey Jeff, do you feel bad when your Amazon workers die in the warehouse sometimes?" The man briefly makes eye contact with the TikTokers before ignoring the question and continuing to walk toward his car. At some point, another diner shouts behind him: "Hey Jeff, nice lazy eye! I wish money could fix that."
READ MORE
Jeff Bezos canceled? Petition to deny his re-entry to Earth gets 10K signatures
Is Eric Schmidt 'mystery' bidder who paid $28M for space flight with Jeff Bezos?
It is unclear when the video was shot or where, but it has found recent popularity on Reddit, garnering over 800 comments in less than 12 hours. Although the man in the clip looks exactly like Bezos, his identity has not been officially confirmed.
The viral clip was first seen on TikTok -- it was posted twice by user @bat_rat_im_all_that but was removed both times since it allegedly violates the platform's policies against "bullying." In the second version of the video, the TikTok user defended their remarks. “Hoping this is starting a movement to see more billionaires getting heckled,” the user said.
Jeff Bezos body-shamed
A number of people on Reddit expressed support for the hecklers as they stressed their frustrations with Bezos. "Eat the rich," wrote one Redditor, alluding to the richest man on Earth. However, there were those who took the issue with insults directed at Bezos' physical appearance, especially the "lazy eye" comment.
"I'm all for bashing Jeff Bezos but I don't like bashing peoples [sic] physical appearance, only the choices they make," commented one user. Another angry commenter wrote, "Okay, comment about the workers, justified. The conditions of Amazon are akin to sweatshops. The comment about the lazy eye, lady (assuming you are a lady) you are a piece of human garbage."
Some of the Redditors thought that defending Bezos against the insult was not required, especially in the wake of Amazon's unfair labor practices. "All these commenters on here worried that a modern-day slave driver is being body-shamed," wrote one Redditor. "Are you people really getting offended that someone pointed out a billionaires [sic] lazy eye? Lmao ffs y'all got some issues," echoed another.
One of the responses read, "This man is the richest person [on Earth] built on suffering and almost every reply is about shaming the middle class girl. Guaranteed many of those are paid users."
The video has gone viral after a ProPublica leak earlier this month, which revealed Bezos and numerous other multi-billionaires to have paid little to no income tax over the past several years. Bezos has also recently been making news after the Amazon founder was said to be preparing to visit space next month.