It could
take weeks for investigators to understand how three abducted women were held inside a
Cleveland house for
more than a decade.
But after
Monday’s dramatic rescue,
it took the Internet only a few hours to anoint a hero and set his zany news interview to music.
Charles
Ramsey was unknown in the real world before calling 911 on Monday night and
helping to free Amanda Berry, Georgina “Gina” DeJesus and Michelle Knight. By
Tuesday afternoon, his name had appeared in more than 10,000 news stories.
Clips from his interview with a local TV affiliate, meanwhile, had spread
across the planet, leading to musical remixes andAuto-Tuned renditions.
When spoken
words and music came together in the past, the words were usually freighted
with history and gravity. Three years ago, two of Winston Churchill’s famous
speeches climbed the British pop charts as part of “Reach for the Skies,”
a two-track recording by the Royal Air Force’s Central Band.
From Martin Luther King Jr. to U.S
President Barack Obama, music has helped add an emotional dimension to the most
powerful words of our time. But in an age of 24-hour news, social media and
sharing that can quickly go viral, the words that now become famous tend to be
ephemeral and light as air.
And so
Ramsey’s three-minute interview had
all of the key ingredients needed for a modern-day meme and remix.
It was oddly poignant. It was
unvarnished. It sliced through the noise. And it was filled with moments of
unintended hilarity, as when he referred to the suspect, his neighbour, and
casually noted: “I barbecue with this dude. We eat ribs and whatnot and listen
to salsa music.”
Expect those words to appear on
T-shirts this summer.
As with Antoine Dodson — who became a global star in 2010
after telling a local TV station about how an intruder attempted to rape his
sister in their Alabama housing project — Ramsey sounded real, a quality that
has been scrubbed from the culture thanks, somewhat ironically, to reality TV.
And as with
Kimberly Wilkins (a.k.a. Sweet Brown),
who gained instant fame after her interview about a fire turned into a viral
hit and song, Ramsey doesn’t look like anyone you’d normally see on TV.
This has only boosted his online
bona fides. He was the voice of millions who are never given a voice.
“I heard screaming,” Ramsey told the
camera, before pantomiming his 911 call. “I’m eating my McDonald’s. I come
outside. I see this girl going nuts trying to get out of her house.
“Bro, I knew something was wrong
when a little pretty white girl ran into a black man’s arms,” he said, as the
interviewer, looking nervous, tried to wrap things up. “Something is wrong here.
Dead giveaway! Dead giveaway! Dead giveaway! Either she’s homeless or she’s got
problems. That’s the only reason she run to a black man.”
The Gregory
Brothers’ “Bed Intruder Song,”
based on Dodson’s news interview, has been watched more than 114 million times
on YouTube and went gold in the U.S. via sales on iTunes.
Ramsey has rightfully been hailed a
hero for helping save the abducted women in Cleveland. Now he can enjoy his
time in the spotlight. That is, until the next tragedy brings a new hero to the
Internet and, for a brief moment, we all sing along.
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