Among the many themes that seem to keep cropping up in video from the January 6 Capitol riot is that the rioters didn’t seem to be the sharpest tools in the shed.
Granted, they were able to breach the very seat of the legislative branch of the United States government. But while doing so, seemingly nobody considered that maybe videoing and photographing themselves doing so might not be a great idea.
Or at least that they should cover their faces while doing so.
A new viral video from the insurrection takes all this to a whole new level. In it, a man tells his wife to hide her face while he films her in a video that he then uploaded it to Parler.
You can see the video here:
You truly cannot make this stuff up.
In the video, the man narrated as he scanned the crowd inside the U.S. Capitol. He then came to his wife, whose face was covered with an American Flag-printed bandana.
His wife then pulled her bandana down to say of the crowd:
“It’s amazing.”
The man then immediately instructed his wife not to reveal her face.
“Put your mask on. I don’t want them to see you.”
But of course, it was too late.
There was her face, clearly identifiable.
Now, of course, the simple solution would be to just keep the video to themselves, right? But, naturally, they did the opposite, uploading it to the social media app Parler.
That app, which has served as a sort of central organizing ground for the far-right, was hacked last week by an Austrian programmer known on the internet as @donk_enby.
Due to Parler’s very loose security procedures, @donk_enby was able to catalog nearly the entire contents of the app, which hacking group Bellingcat has been posting to YouTube and social media. This video was among the scores that @donk_enby and Bellingcat have made public.
And now, it’s just sitting on YouTube for all of America, including the FBI, to see. Bless their hearts.
On Reddit, where the video first blew up, people could not believe the colossal stupidity of this couple.
“Big brain” —ospray2006
“Yeah, but what was he supposed to do? Not upload a video of he and his wife committing federal crimes for his 19 YouTube subscribers to see? That’s crazy talk.” —mdaniel018
“‘Babe! Put your mask on! Now everyone is gonna see your face once I upload this video. How stupid can you be!'” —Varian01
“Jesus Kate! ‘What are you doing? Put your mask on! I don’t want them to see you!'”
“<upload video to social media>”
“You can not make this sh*t up.” —power-cube
“To be fair the internet is not known for figuring out who people are with insane efficiency…… Oh wait that’s literally the internet’s favorite thing to do besides cat GIFs.” —gingerhasyoursoul
“‘Jesus, Kate Johnson from Mountain Drive ##, #### Oldtown, Iowa, phone number ###, social security number ###, put your mask back on, i don’t want them to see you when I upload this video regardless of the fact that you’ve already shown your face and people are able to pause it to get a better look.'” —iTzzSunara
“Why wouldn’t he want ‘them’ to see her? They weren’t doing anything wrong, right?” —warden976
“I live in the DC area and today I passed an electronic billboard along a very busy road with a bunch of the wanted people’s faces on it, asking for help identifying them.”
“They looked like screenshots taken from social media videos. I thought that was pretty great.” —dgrewe
“I was talking to my therapist about this today and we were both totally perplexed as to what these idiots thought was going to happen once they ‘stormed’ the Capitol. It’s like they were all just waiting for this ‘thing’ to happen….and nothing did.” —PaperLioness
“Their big moment and by and large they spent it taking videos and sh*t for their social media. They all stood around watching that woman die with their phones out.” —BasicDesignAdvice
No word on whether the people in this video have been apprehended by authorities, but the FBI has so far arrested more than 100 people who attended the Capitol insurrection, many of whom were first identified via social media.