MAN STUCK IN TENNIS RACKET CLAIMS HE WAS NEVER STUCK

For about a week, the internet's most urgent unsolved case was an 11-second clip of a man jammed torso and leg deep into a tennis racket with the strings removed, surrounded by people doing absolutely nothing. It passed 23 million views on X after a repost on Oct. 31, and the dominant reply was strangers demanding a welfare check. Good news: he's fine. Better news: he was never stuck. The clip comes from Odigie Efe Alex, a 35-year-old emcee in Benin City, Nigeria, who filmed it at the restaurant where he works and posted it to Instagram back on Sept. 28, where it did a quiet 1.5 million views before the West tripped over it. The man in the racket is a contortionist the restaurant hired. Squeezing through a racket frame is a standard trick in that job. The bit worked too well. He slapped the floor like he was going out right there, the waiters panicked, and voices in the background begged somebody to help. Then the room figured out the con, and one guy offered to mash his head. Alex stopped recording once things got tense, which is why nobody got an ending. The performer just stood up. Alex doesn't even know his name and has been trying to get his number to shoot another video.

Why you should give a shit: The most viral emergency of the week was a man at work doing his job correctly, which should tell you how fast the internet will hold a vigil before it checks whether it's a bit.