The Untold Story of What Happened Later on 'Back 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, six-second operas — there'due south no shortage of great work on the video platform that created the Loop, a new type of video format. Vine was founded in Jan 2013, and its first twelvemonth, like any growing platform, came in fits and starts. But I never actually understood the mesmerizing nature of the loop until I saw "Back at Information technology Again at Krispy Kreme," the all-time Vine of alltime.

Two years ago, on January xiii, 2014, the Vine account Fab Cheerleader posted a video captioned "He hit the sign😂," and it is incredible. In the first shot, a man holds a Krispy Kreme hat up to the camera and says that famous line, "Back at information technology 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 later on — earlier the sound of the sign being wrenched from the wall has even finished — the video begins again. It is amasterpiece.

I dearest many things nearly this Vine. First of all, the punch line is insane. "Back at it over again at Krispy Kreme," we hear. What does it hateful? I can all but guarantee that nobody assumed the phrase meant "dorsum handspring into a neon sign." I love how it ends before the sign hits the floor. We get but plenty to know that the handspring — impressive in and of itself — has caused some damage. Merely nosotros don't know the extent of the damage, nor how our stuntman reacted, or how the employees of Krispy Kreme reacted. It's a bare space that our imagination fills — fabricated all the more than dramatic past the eternal, endless loop ofVine.

So 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, primary amid them the lack of context. Vines create an odd tension in the viewer: Each video is a mere six seconds, simply it loops on endlessly. You develop an intimate knowledge of the six seconds you're given through the peephole of the Vine — only are left totally in the night near 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 as much every bit I could admire the fragile artistry of the unresolved disaster in "Back at It Once again at Krispy Kreme," I still needed to know: What the hell happened after he kicked the sign downwards? So, on its two-year anniversary, I set up out to discover the origins of this incredible Vine — as well every bit learn itsaftermath.

Of grade, as is often the instance with Vines, information technology wasn't going to be easy. While "Fab Cheerleader" was the account on which the Vine went viral, information technology didn't create this video — it'southward simply a page filled with freebooted (that is, ripped and reuploaded without credit) clips of cheerleading and tumbling. On a site called FunnyVineVideos.com, I was able to find a ameliorate-quality version of the original Vine — one that had been posted a calendar week before Fab Cheerleader'due south. Merely, like Fab Cheerleader, FunnyVineVideos didn't credit the original author of the video.

I decided to take a different tactic. I called up the scene of the crime: Krispy Kreme. In the first shot, one tin conspicuously brand out a building number for the Krispy Kreme location: 9301. A quick Google query will direct y'all to a Krispy Kreme location in Matthews, North Carolina. (Credit where credit is due: This deduction is not my ain. I vaguely call up seeing someone having done this on Tumblr months ago.)

I spoke on the phone with Heath, a manager at the Krispy Kreme location who about knew the incident I was describing. He was, still, slightly surprised that I knew of the video. "Actually, that video was supposed to have been removed from the web," he told me, "so I'm surprised information technology's all the same out therecirculating."

I told him that the video had millions of loops, and that I wanted to follow upward on it, meet what the aftermath was. At this signal, Heath said that he could non tell me anything, and said he would have to direct me to Krispy Kreme's corporate office. I called the phone number, which presented me with a list of options that did not include "viral video response." I had no luck. I followed up with an e-mail to Krispy Kreme's media contacts, but take not heardback.

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

What I institute were a number of tweets, all of which reference the same at present-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 upward tumbling at an early historic period. He was inspired past watching his cousin tumble, and also by Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. He now teaches tumbling toothers.

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

Oh my God, allow me tell yous about that nighttime. And so I have a free coupon to get like a dozen doughnuts, so I become, "All right, say no more than." I go brand moves — we're all in line, we're but talking. I was like, "Yo, I'thousand virtually to brand a video, I'one thousand about to do a flip." And so I requite them my coupon, I'yard like, "Stand in line, get the dozen doughnuts, I'thou gonna get over here and brand this video," and all that.

So information technology was me and my two friends. I tell them to fix at the table. I was like, "Oh, I gotta get my intro existent quick." I did my footling intro — "Back at information technology over again at Krispy Kreme" — and I was like, "Y'all set?" Then we flipped the photographic camera around.

I back up. I told myself, I'm not gonna hit anything. So I do my flip, but the 2nd flip that I did — the back handspring, the back one with hands going into the spin — I stretched information technology out too long. And then when I went into the air and started spinning, my left leg hit the sign off the wall clean, and it dropped behind the counter. And it was similar [drinking glass shattering audio effect].

Information technology was packed. There was a good hundred, a hundred and some modify, people within. Everybody was talking. As soon equally that thing dropped, everybody didn't talk for a expert xxx seconds. It was cipher but silence. As soon as I landed — I didn't fall after that, you saw me, I landed on my feet. I looked up and I saw that it fell, I didn't await at nobody, I simply kept walking, and I walked out the door. Everybody was like, "What the heck? Oh shoot, he only kicked downwards the sign!" Everybody started going crazy.

Then I was only outside chilling. Three people from backside the desk-bound that were making doughnuts or whatsoever ran outside and it was like, "Yo, that shit crazy, bro!" And he was like, "Bro, I call up somebody in there's calling the cops," or whatsoever. So they called the cops on me, and I had to practise a fiddling whipping and running. They didn't find me, and then that was information technology for the night.

In the backwash, Aaron said that he did get a visit from police enforcement. " The sheriff came to my house, and we talked about it, merely he was like, 'Yous don't have to pay for anything like that, just don't do anything like that once again.'"

And that was information technology. After, Aaron deleted the video from his business relationship in order to avert attention from law enforcement, just it all the same lives online. And thank God information technology does, considering it is the best Vine of all time. The phrase "Back at it again at Krispy Kreme" is nevertheless referenced on a daily basis. That famous sentence is now a mantra — every time you lot inject a petty chip of extraordinary flair into the mundane, you, too, are back at it again … at Krispy Kreme.

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

The Story of 'Back at It Over again at Krispy Kreme'