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YouTube video lets 'Tornado Boy' soak up his 15 minutesMar 26, 2011 (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- The voice on the other end of the phone was subdued. Asked if the speaker was, indeed, Tyler Tubbs, the shrieking "Tornado Boy" of YouTube fame, whose panicky video of the twister hovering over his Hempfield house Wednesday went viral with more than 200,000 hits as of Friday afternoon, the answer was a quiet "yes." So, um, what did Tyler, 15, think about all the attention his video had received ("Kids' Epic Freak-out Caught on Tape"), not to mention the remixes and the interviews with CNN, "Good Morning America" and Fox News? TYLER TUBBS' TORNADO ENCOUNTER In the time honored-tradition of teenage boys everywhere, his answer was almost, but not quite, monosyllabic. "It's pretty cool." This was a far cry from the Tyler Tubbs heard -- but not seen -- on his iPod video, punctuated with repeated "Oh my God," "Do. You. See. That. Twister," "It's right above us, Mom. It's humongous. It's hailing golf balls," and ending abruptly as he screams "Tornado! Tornado! Tornado!" as he dashes down to the basement. "What Tyler Tubbs managed to capture was the fear," CNN's Jeanne Moos noted in her report, although in his interview with the cable channel, Tyler seemed to have recovered nicely from his near-brush with the twister. "You can just call me the tornado boy," he said calmly. Joking aside, the tornado, with winds up to 120 miles an hour, did cause real damage -- it traveled a path at least 6 to 7 miles long and 300 feet wide and damaged or destroyed at least 90 homes, although Tyler's home was unscathed. Damage estimates are at least $4.5 million. It was also one more reminder that, on a day when Elizabeth Taylor died after building a lifetime's worth of fame, all a teenaged boy had to do to achieve worldwide, if fleeting, celebrity was to scream and run inside his house. And, between 5:45 and 6 p.m., post his video on YouTube and Facebook. That evening and all Thursday, the tweets and emails and phone calls started coming in from media outlets. "I was, like, really excited," Tyler said, noting that he'd been on "Good Morning America" and Fox, and he laughed when CNN compared his performance to that by the similarly exuberant "Rainbow Man," who, in a video that attracted more than a million hits about a year ago, sobbed and shrieked "Oh my God" -- at the sight of twin rainbows. Not everyone was gracious, however. "You sissy," said one YouTube.com commenter. "You drama queen," said another. "Ternadah! Ternadah!" said another, making fun of his Western Pennsylvania accent. Still, Tyler's main goal eludes him: to get on "Tosh.0," a Comedy Central website known for publishing videos that teenage boys think are funny. His mother, Sharon Tubbs, was at Hempfield High School picking up their older son when the storm hit. She knew it was heading toward their house, "and I knew he would be running outside with a video camera. He loves doing that when storms come." In the video, she is the silent presence on the other end of the phone as her son shrieks. Was she terrified for him? "I told him to get inside the house," she said, and was cut off before the tornado touched down and Tyler started screaming. "I'm glad I didn't hear that," Ms. Tubbs said. "We were really blessed that nothing happened to our house." In the end, though, all of this is a teachable moment, she said, noting that she wants her family to help with the cleanup effort at Hempfield Area High School, which was damaged in the storm, and there's been discussion of T-shirt sales to raise money for those whose homes were damaged in the storm. "Tyler loves the attention and fame, but I've told him he needs to keep his feet on the ground, because baseball season starts Tuesday." As for Tyler, he's relieved about one thing. "At least I didn't cry like Rainbow Man." See CNN's report at http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/offbeat/2011/03/24/moos.omg.it.landed.cnn?hpt=C2. To see the full video, go to post-gazette.com. Kaitlynn Riely contributed. Mackenzie Carpenter: [email protected] or 412-263-1949. To see more of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.post-gazette.com. Copyright (c) 2011, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For more information about the content services offered by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services (MCT), visit www.mctinfoservices.com. |