While Florida Man is busy accosting lost alligators from a safe social distance, a bunch of rowdy Texans said, "Hold our Lone Star."
Despite the ongoing global pandemic, crowds of partiers descended on Crystal Beach on Texas' Bolivar Peninsula for Go Topless Jeep Weekend, an event that's about as classy as it sounds.
Local station 12NewsNow spoke to one reveler whose justification for coming to the beach boiled down to "Been in quarantine, and I need to get out and party! Woo!"
In the same report — which featured plenty of footage of people getting all up in each others' business — police admitted to being unable to enforce social distancing at the event.
Not even SNL could not write something as ridiculous as this actual, real news report from my local station pic.twitter.com/VVTziwuyOd
— socially distant rendon (@maria_rendon97) May 18, 2020
Twitter denizens were quick to call out just how trashy the Jeep Weekenders were being.
"Galveston is the Florida of Houston, and Bolivar is the Florida of Galveston," @return_carriage astutely noted.
Galveston is the Florida of Houston, and Bolivar is the Florida of Galveston.
— CarriageReturn (@return_carriage) May 19, 2020
The event went beyond those cringeworthy antics, though, as the weekend culminated in a shooting captured on video by a bystander.
In the video posted to Twitter by @EvillaTruly, the person filming shouts "Oh shit! Get his ass!" and laughs while people on camera fight. The person filming then flees when gunfire breaks out.
This was last night at topless guys I’m trynna post my video before someone steals it from my snap.@WORLDSTAR #topless #gotopless #worldstar pic.twitter.com/hFNCHBVV9N
— Emiliooo (@EvillaTruly) May 17, 2020
Galveston County Sherriff Henry Trochesset told NBC News that two men were airlifted to the hospital with gunshot wounds to their torsos.
According to NBC, no arrests have been made in relation to the shooting, although nearly 200 people were arrested on unrelated charges including assault, DWI, driving without a seatbelt and public intoxication.
National news outlets jumped on the delicious combo of cringey viral content and crime reporting, with articles on Go Topless Jeep Weekend cropping up everywhere from HuffPost and the New York Post to snarky blogs on Gizmodo and Buzzfeed. The viral news report racked up six million views on Twitter.
During Gov. Greg Abbott's latest announcement pertaining to his plan to reopen the state at a breakneck pace, he asked that Texans keep social distancing in mind and "Be a good neighbor."
Apparently, this is our version of neighborly behavior. Yeehaw.
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