Lipscomb, Chris Coleman and Laura Machado were the three racers on this day, the Wheel of Fortune, which you may have seen before. In one round, Machado repeatedly failed to answer the puzzle, which was the phrase “another feather in your hat.” She suggested “hat”, “lap” and “card” as the last word. (“The pen is moving around,” said host Pat Sajak.) And while she kept guessing incorrectly, Lipscomb went bankrupt, while Coleman guessed a few incorrect letters and then went bankrupt himself before Lipscomb finally solved the problem.
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The absolutely painful series of events was quickly filmed and posted on Twitter, where the video has been viewed millions of times. Viewers were both captivated and horrified, and the tweets began to air: “The dumbest two minutes in the history of the Wheel of Destiny.” “Tonight the Wheel of Fortune. I can not. This round was brutal. ” “I shout on TV like I’m watching a football game.”
Soon Lipscomb was bombarded with texts from Apparently every person he’s ever met worked on the production team at the Oscars in Los Angeles, so the episode began airing on the East Coast hours before he could watch it. “I didn’t think it would be talked about,” he said.
Indeed, a kind of moment that these contestants laughed at during the recording in December hit the harsh climate of the Twitter sphere and mutated on the Internet for ridicule. And like so many moments with viral reality TV and game shows that have appeared before in the Internet age – the mixing of Homer vs. Homer Simpson in “Tipping Point” in the UK, every round of fun “Jeopardy!” even the infamous “Wheel” moment when a competitor mispronounces “corner cabinet for curious things” – drew an alarming amount of attention, both to the good-natured variety and the ridiculous.
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On Wednesday, Sajak posted a topic on Twitter, noting that what happened in Tuesday’s episode was actually a common occurrence. “It always hurts me when nice people come to our show to play a game and make some money and maybe make a lifelong dream come true, and then be ridiculed online when they make a mistake or something goes wrong.” he writes.
It always hurts me when nice people come to our show to play a game and make some money and maybe fulfill a lifelong dream, and then they are the object of online ridicule when they make a mistake or something goes wrong.
– Pat Sajak (@PatOnWheel) March 2, 2022
“The Feather in the Hat puzzle last night was an example of this. “Sitting at home, it seems incredible that they couldn’t solve it, but I knew in real time what was happening,” Sayak said. the thread continued. “The first attempt to solve was” Feather in your hat “, which, by the way, many people say. So all three players thought it was a good decision, and were amazed when I said it was wrong.
“Now imagine you’re on national television and suddenly you’re distorted and start to worry that you look stupid, and if the pen isn’t in your hat, where the hell can it be?” You start swinging looking for alternatives, not synonyms for “hat”, Sajak continued. “And, of course, when it’s decided, you want to crawl into a hole. I was praised online for “sticking together” and not making fun of players. The truth is, all I want to do is help them get through this and convince them that these things happen even to very smart people. “
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Indeed, after the “feather in your hat” puzzle was solved, Sayak reassured the contestants: “Boy, this is happening. You catch a word in your head and then, of course, when you understand it, you say, “Ah! What was I thinking? You know? “Sajak said with a laugh.” Anyway, it’s all right. This round is over. But it was fun in a perverse way. ” Alas, Sajak’s words came after the end of the viral video that is circulating.
Coleman, a 30-year-old actor, project manager and public activist from Los Angeles, watched The Wheel of Fortune with her grandmother, who died in January, and he competed in the show in her honor. According to him, the “hat in the hat” incident is just one of many small accidents on the set on the day the episode was recorded – so between reruns and other technical challenges, it barely registered as something that could become controversial. . Pat spoke to me and my other two runners throughout the round, saying, “Guys, thank you so much for your patience. We apologize for what is happening, “Coleman said. (A spokesman for the show said Sajak declined to comment outside of his tweets.)
Of course, the continuing failure to guess “cap” was disappointing for us, because we are the ones under the lights right now, and we have five seconds to guess the letter or decide, “Coleman said. But Sajak’s jester on air “brightened this up” and helped Coleman move on mentally. After the recording in December, he said, he hadn’t thought much about the hat-and-hat accident until this week.
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“The sad thing is that most people don’t really realize that idioms aren’t necessarily something everyone knows about. The idiom is something that is taught through culture, “Coleman said.
Like Coleman, Lipscomb watched the show with his grandmother, which inspired him to audition. He was surprised by the intense reaction received from the video – although he solved the puzzle, Twitter users mocked everything from his suit to his mustache. But as a stand-up comedian in addition to his daily work, he found himself enjoying attention. He was playfully responding to tweets and trying to accept his sudden internet fame.
“I don’t care if I mess up a game show,” he said, pointing to another point in the episode where he incorrectly guessed the non-existent phrase “pecan chestnuts.” “I’m just happy that people can see my sense of humor.
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Several people tweeted him from Frozen actor Josh Gad (who just wrote “God Help Us” above the video), but Lipscomb didn’t mind. “My niece loves Frozen,” he said, so she would definitely be impressed. “Olaf made fun of your uncle!”
Ever since Gad’s tweet began to attract attention, Coleman said, he has seen social media posts calling themselves Lipscomb and Machado “illiterate or uneducated – or we shouldn’t be registered voters in America.”
“Sometimes you hear someone say ‘Dumb blond moment!’ Or just say, ‘Wow, I can’t believe I didn’t get this,’ you know, and they laugh,” Coleman said. “But with Internet culture today, people are no longer making fun of things. We now have people who send hate speech to us in our DMs. “
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Coleman and Lipscomb spoke via Instagram DM while experiencing this surreal week together; Lipscomb said he also kept in touch with Machado (who did not respond to a request for an interview). According to Lipscomb, she had “an amazing sense of humor about everything.”
And Lipscomb said all three were grateful that Sajak had spoken out in their defense. “It was like our game show, Dad is intervening in the fight against internet hooligans,” he said. “I think all three of us are very grateful that he took the time to write this. That meant a lot. “
However, Coleman is looking forward to leaving his involuntary days of stellar viruses behind. He won a trip to St. Lucia with “Wheel” and plans to take a vacation there in September – and not think about the video “pero in your cap”.