The Untold Story of What Happened Later 'Dorsum at It Over again at Krispy Kreme,' the Best Vine of All Time

There are many good Vines, but few perfect ones. Cats, dogs, pranks, visual trickery, 6-2d operas — at that place'south no shortage of keen work on the video platform that created the Loop, a new type of video format. Vine was founded in Jan 2013, and its first year, like any growing platform, came in fits and starts. But I never really understood the mesmerizing nature of the loop until I saw "Dorsum at It Again at Krispy Kreme," the best Vine of alltime.

Two years ago, on January 13, 2014, the Vine account Fab Cheerleader posted a video captioned "He striking the sign😂," and information technology is incredible. In the outset shot, a man holds a Krispy Kreme lid up to the photographic camera and says that famous line, "Dorsum at it again at Krispy Kreme." In the second shot, he does a back handspring into a neon Krispy Kreme sign, knocking it from its housing. Roughly a quarter-second afterward — before the sound of the sign being wrenched from the wall has even finished — the video begins once more. It is amasterpiece.

I love many things about this Vine. Beginning of all, the punch line is insane. "Dorsum at information technology once more at Krispy Kreme," we hear. What does it mean? I can all but guarantee that nobody assumed the phrase meant "back handspring into a neon sign." I love how it ends before the sign hits the flooring. We go just enough to know that the handspring — impressive in and of itself — has caused some damage. But we don't know the extent of the damage, nor how our stuntman reacted, or how the employees of Krispy Kreme reacted. It'southward a bare infinite that our imagination fills — made all the more than dramatic past the eternal, endless loop ofVine.

Then much of what made Dorsum at It Once again at Krispy Kreme fantastic — besides the guy crashing into the sign — can be attributed to the odd formal characteristics of Vine, principal among them the lack of context. Vines create an odd tension in the viewer: Each video is a mere half dozen seconds, but it loops on incessantly. You develop an intimate cognition of the half dozen seconds you lot're given through the peephole of the Vine — just are left totally in the dark about the context and resolution. Theories and speculation grow. The viral Vine economy, where Vines are copied and reuploaded with no credit or explantion, only heightens the mystery. Vine purists, if such a thing exists, might insist that such mystique is essential to a Vine. But equally much as I could adore the delicate artistry of the unresolved disaster in "Back at Information technology Over again at Krispy Kreme," I still needed to know: What the hell happened after he kicked the sign down? So, on its two-twelvemonth anniversary, I set out to find the origins of this incredible Vine — every bit well every bit learn itsaftermath.

Of course, equally is often the case with Vines, it wasn't going to be like shooting fish in a barrel. While "Fab Cheerleader" was the business relationship on which the Vine went viral, it didn't create this video — it'south just a folio filled with freebooted (that is, ripped and reuploaded without credit) clips of cheerleading and tumbling. On a site chosen FunnyVineVideos.com, I was able to find a ameliorate-quality version of the original Vine — i that had been posted a week before Fab Cheerleader'southward. But, like Fab Cheerleader, FunnyVineVideos didn't credit the original author of the video.

I decided to accept a unlike tactic. I called up the scene of the law-breaking: Krispy Kreme. In the starting time shot, one can conspicuously brand out a building number for the Krispy Kreme location: 9301. A quick Google query will straight you to a Krispy Kreme location in Matthews, N Carolina. (Credit where credit is due: This deduction is not my own. I vaguely recall seeing someone having done this on Tumblr months ago.)

I spoke on the phone with Heath, a managing director at the Krispy Kreme location who about knew the incident I was describing. He was, nevertheless, slightly surprised that I knew of the video. "Actually, that video was supposed to accept been removed from the web," he told me, "so I'm surprised it's notwithstanding out therecirculating."

I told him that the video had millions of loops, and that I wanted to follow up on it, run into what the aftermath was. At this signal, Heath said that he could not tell me anything, and said he would have to direct me to Krispy Kreme'south corporate office. I chosen the phone number, which presented me with a listing of options that did not include "viral video response." I had no luck. I followed upwardly with an email to Krispy Kreme's media contacts, merely have not heardback.

I couldn't terminate thinking about that video, though — the best Vine of all time. So I turned to Twitter,searching for posts that independent the words kicked and sign, likewise as the URL string "vine.co" and restricted results to earlier the date of Fab Cheerleader'southwardvine.

What I plant were a number of tweets, all of which reference the same now-removed Vine. Many included the hashtag #tumblingislife, and a few referenced the user @TumblingIsLife1. The man who runs that account, Aaron, is the hero of our story — the man who kicked the sign off the wall at Krispy Kreme. Aaron, who originally hails from the Bronx and now lives in Atlanta, told me that he took up tumbling at an early age. He was inspired by watching his cousin tumble, and likewise by Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. He at present teaches tumbling toothers.

I can try to tell the story of that infamous night any number of ways, merely none of them can compare to how Aaron described the incident to me firsthand. It is an astonishing story. In his own words:

Oh my God, let me tell yous near that nighttime. So I have a free coupon to become similar a dozen doughnuts, so I go, "All right, say no more than." I go make moves — we're all in line, nosotros're merely talking. I was like, "Yo, I'm about to make a video, I'm nigh to practise a flip." So I give them my coupon, I'm similar, "Stand in line, get the dozen doughnuts, I'm gonna go over here and make this video," and all that.

Then it was me and my two friends. I tell them to fix at the tabular array. I was like, "Oh, I gotta get my intro real quick." I did my little intro — "Back at it again at Krispy Kreme" — and I was like, "Y'all ready?" And so we flipped the camera around.

I dorsum upwardly. I told myself, I'm not gonna hit anything. And so I do my flip, but the second flip that I did — the dorsum handspring, the back 1 with hands going into the spin — I stretched it out too long. So when I went into the air and started spinning, my left leg hit the sign off the wall clean, and information technology dropped backside the counter. And it was like [glass shattering sound effect].

It was packed. There was a skilful hundred, a hundred and some modify, people inside. Everybody was talking. As before long as that matter dropped, everybody didn't talk for a good 30 seconds. It was null but silence. Every bit soon every bit I landed — I didn't fall after that, you saw me, I landed on my feet. I looked upward and I saw that it fell, I didn't wait at nobody, I just kept walking, and I walked out the door. Everybody was like, "What the heck? Oh shoot, he just kicked down the sign!" Everybody started going crazy.

And then I was just outside spooky. Three people from behind the desk that were making doughnuts or whatsoever ran outside and it was similar, "Yo, that shit crazy, bro!" And he was like, "Bro, I think somebody in in that location's calling the cops," or whatever. And then they called the cops on me, and I had to do a little whipping and running. They didn't discover me, and then that was information technology for the night.

In the aftermath, Aaron said that he did get a visit from law enforcement. " The sheriff came to my house, and we talked about it, but he was like, 'You don't have to pay for anything like that, just don't practice annihilation like that again.'"

And that was information technology. Subsequently, Aaron deleted the video from his account in order to avert attention from police force enforcement, only it withal lives online. And give thanks God it does, because it is the all-time Vine of all fourth dimension. The phrase "Back at it again at Krispy Kreme" is still referenced on a daily basis. That famous sentence is now a mantra — every time you inject a trivial bit of extraordinary flair into the mundane, yous, likewise, are back at information technology again … at Krispy Kreme.

Asked if he had any other thoughts to add, Aaron stated, as a matter of fact, "Tumbling islife."

The Story of 'Back at It Again at Krispy Kreme'