Comments on: Walk on water

Walk on water

disillusioned — Fri, 07 May 2010 22:38:18 -0800

Liquid Mountaineering is a new sport (or viral hoax) that these guys are purporting will be the next big thing.

I'd prefer they call it "Christing", myself.

By: 517

517 — Fri, 07 May 2010 22:42:07 -0800

Are you sure you want to go with "viral hoax" being one of two possible explanations?

By: Sticherbeast

Sticherbeast — Fri, 07 May 2010 22:43:26 -0800

I would prefer if they wore frilled lizard collars as they did this.

By: Silky Slim

Silky Slim — Fri, 07 May 2010 22:47:24 -0800

OK, I'll bite... I vote fake. Notice how sudden the drop-off is when they finally fall in... And always in the same spot. A hoax and a lazy one at that.

By: Burhanistan

Burhanistan — Fri, 07 May 2010 22:49:28 -0800

I really want to market those shoes to people who buy "The Secret" books.

By: Pope Guilty

Pope Guilty — Fri, 07 May 2010 22:49:31 -0800

Also notice how they appear to be using stuff that all comes from the same company, and the shoes they're wearing appear to just be waterproof sneakers. I have a pair of Merrells that are waterproof, but I'm sure not walking on water with 'em.

By: Burhanistan

Burhanistan — Fri, 07 May 2010 22:50:02 -0800

NO! It's real! You don't believe so you won't go anywhere!

By: amyms

amyms — Fri, 07 May 2010 22:52:27 -0800

I don't get the "mountaineering" part. What does mountain climbing have to do with it?

By: Burhanistan

Burhanistan — Fri, 07 May 2010 22:54:41 -0800

You can call it Jesuscizing instead.

By: hellojed

hellojed — Fri, 07 May 2010 22:56:43 -0800

I thought it was a hoax, but part of me was like "Water is pretty dense, if they're running in a certain way then I could see how maybe..." I want to believe!

By: koeselitz

koeselitz — Fri, 07 May 2010 22:57:40 -0800

This has got to be the most moronic thing I've ever seen. These guys must've been quite drunk.

By: Some1

Some1 — Fri, 07 May 2010 23:01:23 -0800

No, It's real! I can do this. Spray a whole bunch of water all over the driveway and run like hell bent for leather!

By: loquacious

loquacious — Fri, 07 May 2010 23:08:52 -0800

Oh, I've done this. You don't even need special shoes. You just need sufficient velocity, which they don't have. Try stretching out a huge bungee cord and launching yourself like a rock out of a wrist rocket. It doesn't even matter if your feet are down, you'll skim like a stone across the water on your back, stomach or head. It actually works better in the ocean, anyway, particularly in the Pacific in large surf. More seriously: on a large enough, steep enough and fast enough wave you can actually bodysurf into a standing position by doing a forward somersault like you're barefoot water skiing for, oh, about 0.3 seconds, maybe 0.75 seconds, depending if you're wearing fins on your feet or not and if you can get them to "plane" instead of "pearl" and dig under the surface of the water. If they pearl you faceplant into the wave and get sucked back up over the falls. If they plane you skim for a split second then plunge deep into the wave, and then go over the falls. Avoid plunging head-first over the falls, you'll break your neck. The trick is to do another somersault in the lip of the wave and plunge feet-first into the soup. Even more seriously? Viral. For Peter's sake, there's a Jesus figurine hanging from their mirror. Pepsi shoe?

By: iamabot

iamabot — Fri, 07 May 2010 23:10:34 -0800

Clear plastic ramp/runway under the water, shows up if you go through it frame by frame.

By: loquacious

loquacious — Fri, 07 May 2010 23:14:59 -0800

Surfing aside, skimboarding is pretty close to "walking" on water, considering how you start on the shore, start running, throw your board, jump on it and slide out into the surf for a ways. But skimboarding is inherently very painful and easily more dangerous than skateboarding big vert ramps. So many things go wrong so fast it's ridiculous. Even when you're an accomplished skimboarder about one out of three rides ends abruptly when catch an edge and slam full body into the hard-pack sand, which gives worse raspberries than dry concrete. Even if you stick the landing you're flinging yourself head-long into shorebreak, which loves to pick you up and throw you right back at the sand you were avoiding in the first place. Powered water skiing doesn't count. Too easy.

By: kneecapped

kneecapped — Fri, 07 May 2010 23:17:42 -0800

I think it's like this: Jesus was up on the Mt of Olives and he'd just finished transfiguring for the disciples, and he needed something new to wow 'em. So he ran down the side of the mountain toward Galilee. The momentum of this run was so great that he pounded it and just barely managed to stay upright, while running out to some fishing boat near the lakeshore, the fishers of which mistook his wild attempts to keep balanced as gesticulations as to where to cast their nets. So they tried the other side, to some success. Whoa, said Peter and the boys. That was somethin'. The rest is religiosity. So without the noble efforts of the Christ, would we consider such shenanigans? Would we wonder what the Christ would have been able to do with water-wicking shoes and a wetsuit? I, for one, am grateful that these boys have taken it upon themselves to help us out with that. Honestly though, every time I run out into the lake like that, making my own half-hearted attempts at divinity, I'm shocked at how cold the water feels on my nuts. Did our saviour have this problem? That's what I want to know. Did the Christ's nuts disappear into his lower abdomen when they sensed cold? Or, was walking on water just an elaborate form of nut protection?

By: allkindsoftime

allkindsoftime — Fri, 07 May 2010 23:18:28 -0800

I don't get the "mountaineering" part. What does mountain climbing have to do with it? Because this is an ad for shoes actually purposed for mountaineering, rather than building a plexiglass run-way 2 inches below the surface of a lake, 30 feet out, and running down it.

By: koeselitz

koeselitz — Fri, 07 May 2010 23:21:24 -0800

So what's the deal with posting some sort of damned advertisement?

By: vapidave

vapidave — Fri, 07 May 2010 23:26:04 -0800

Somebody on the internet tried to trick me.

By: quarsan

quarsan — Fri, 07 May 2010 23:29:06 -0800

I've been looking for a lake with sloping water so I can go water skiing.

By: Artw

Artw — Fri, 07 May 2010 23:29:13 -0800

Spider Jerusalem is on the phone ordering his Air Jesus shoes.

By: chavenet

chavenet — Fri, 07 May 2010 23:42:53 -0800

You might think it's Magic... Ocasek for the gold, without shoes.

By: floam

floam — Fri, 07 May 2010 23:43:38 -0800

Although there's water in this I couldn't come up with any sort of clever ______ blue joke.

By: disillusioned

disillusioned — Sat, 08 May 2010 00:03:30 -0800

The deal is I like a spirited hoax tear-apart discussion, that's all. (Hence mentioning the very likely possibility in the FPP itself.) Along with people hypothesizing about how they did it. allkindsoftime's comment is the most prescient, I think—someone else had already pointed they're decked out in a certain company's gear, but clearly calling it mountaineering is the ringer. That, and, frankly, the production values are insanely high. Mods can kill it for blueness if necessary, of course. (And, naturally, they'd need shoes like that in order to get the traction they need on the plexiglass.)

By: jardinier

jardinier — Sat, 08 May 2010 00:04:29 -0800

How about: New Poland Springs Blue!, the bottled water that comes in a pair of waterproof Hi-Tec shoes - drink the water and when you're done, wear the shoes. (Then go buy the hats, jackets sandals, and everything else they're selling you in this viral ad.)

By: Pope Guilty

Pope Guilty — Sat, 08 May 2010 00:10:37 -0800

The deal is I like a spirited hoax tear-apart discussion posted by disillusioned

By: w0mbat

w0mbat — Sat, 08 May 2010 00:11:40 -0800

Obvious shoe ad.

By: twoleftfeet

twoleftfeet — Sat, 08 May 2010 00:29:37 -0800

Easier if you freeze the water first. No special shoes required.

By: brenton

brenton — Sat, 08 May 2010 00:36:43 -0800

I wonder if you had special gear if this could ever really be possible. Reminds me of Leonardo Da Vinci with his boat shoes. Oh, and it reminds me of this.

By: twoleftfeet

twoleftfeet — Sat, 08 May 2010 00:38:48 -0800

There have been quite a few patents for water shoes and the like.

By: brenton

brenton — Sat, 08 May 2010 00:43:25 -0800

Oh, and I forgot walking on non-newtonian fluid.

By: Netzapper

Netzapper — Sat, 08 May 2010 00:58:11 -0800

Somebody pointed out, on reddit, that if you look at the running sequence immediately after 0:46 in the video, you can see the guy misstep. When he does so, the edge of the plexiglass ramp kicks up. Water splashes upward where it has no business splashing at all. Still, pretty clever, really. But it's obviously selling shoes. Nice shoes, though. Might buy a pair... if I had any clue what kind they were. Advertising fail.

By: halogen

halogen — Sat, 08 May 2010 00:59:34 -0800

Wait, it's just an advertisement? Disappointedly strips off Hi-Tec cap, Hi-Tec waterproof shoes, Hi-Tec wetsuit and Hi-Tec hoodie. Ad or not, this video made me utterly happy.

By: Bobicus

Bobicus — Sat, 08 May 2010 01:10:54 -0800

By: djgh

djgh — Sat, 08 May 2010 01:15:14 -0800

Yeah, it looks like an advertisement for Hi-Tec. It's not even a good viral concept, in a way, although at least it avoids the "three smug dudes" aspect of the Ray Ban one (NEVAR HIDE!). Plus, it had Laurent Garnier as part of the soundtrack, which was cool.

By: P.o.B.

P.o.B. — Sat, 08 May 2010 01:28:48 -0800

The mystical tone was grating. If you are pretending that you are doing something amazing and proveable, don't come with such an unreasonable expectation of disbelief. It makes it that much more obvious. It was supposed to be a riff on both extreme sport videos and hot coal walking. I think it was more jokey "Ha that's funny! How'd they do that?" rather than "Woah, that was amazingly real! How'd they do that?"

By: P.o.B.

P.o.B. — Sat, 08 May 2010 01:36:37 -0800

Of course the obvious conclusion for most anyone would be they had an underwater ramp. Not really mystical or well guarded secret.

By: fearfulsymmetry

fearfulsymmetry — Sat, 08 May 2010 01:54:56 -0800

I'll keep my horizontal mountaineering to the Uxbridge Road

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Sat, 08 May 2010 02:04:23 -0800

Pepsi Dew?

By: Jimmy Havok

Jimmy Havok — Sat, 08 May 2010 03:11:25 -0800

It's already been calculated how fast a person would have to run to do the jesus lizard trick. It's about 70 mph.

By: Samuel Farrow

Samuel Farrow — Sat, 08 May 2010 03:30:29 -0800

Hey mister, you don't want to walk on water, you're only going to walk all over me

By: dancestoblue

dancestoblue — Sat, 08 May 2010 03:36:25 -0800

I'm pretty sure this is in the bible, in Matthew or Leviticus or somewheres, Jesus whips these shoes up whilst he was making the wine and fish and bread and stuff, they stuffed a pair of them on ol' Lazarus and he shot out of that tomb an' whipped cross the sea like a water bug, waving palm leaves and all...

By: exogenous

exogenous — Sat, 08 May 2010 03:37:38 -0800

You can see the clear ramp tip up partially out of the water at about 0:49.

By: weapons-grade pandemonium

weapons-grade pandemonium — Sat, 08 May 2010 05:02:54 -0800

You skeptics are not listening. They tell you how they do it: "I mean, obviously the first step is the most important one. When we like discovered oh my god, Jesus..." "I think if you don't actually believe that you're going to walk on that water it's not going to happen for you."

By: The Esteemed Doctor Bunsen Honeydew

The Esteemed Doctor Bunsen Honeydew — Sat, 08 May 2010 05:05:31 -0800

Here's the thing, guys: They win. There are large and high-profile threads about this on pretty much all of the social linksite/community blogs right now. People are talking about Hi-Tec gear, even if the conversation is just "this was a mildly clever BUT TOTALLY FAKE viral ad for Hi-Tec." The point of an advertisement— billboard, magazine, TV, viral, &c— is to extend name recognition of a brand. I now know exactly who Hi-Tec is and what they sell. They win. the other thing is, i'm not mad about this. Getting your name out by giving the world something even mildly entertaining (if only entertaining to figure out how they performed a kind of clever hoax) is SO much better than just having a guy in a blue shirt and a beard yell at me for 45 seconds.

By: oulipian

oulipian — Sat, 08 May 2010 05:58:40 -0800

Turns out Hi-Tec also sells bathrobes!

By: Legomancer

Legomancer — Sat, 08 May 2010 06:15:06 -0800

They win. There are large and high-profile threads about this on pretty much all of the social linksite/community blogs right now. People are talking about Hi-Tec gear, even if the conversation is just "this was a mildly clever BUT TOTALLY FAKE viral ad for Hi-Tec." The point of an advertisement— billboard, magazine, TV, viral, &c— is to extend name recognition of a brand. I now know exactly who Hi-Tec is and what they sell. They win. Everyone raise your hand who bought some Hi-Tec shoes. The purpose of a shoe ad, ultimately, is to sell shoes. A lot of people talked about the Burger King "Herb" campaign, but it didn't sell Whoppers, and it was a failure.

By: The Esteemed Doctor Bunsen Honeydew

The Esteemed Doctor Bunsen Honeydew — Sat, 08 May 2010 06:50:08 -0800

Yes, Legomancer, but this wasn't a shoe ad. It was a Hi-Tec ad. It's about selling gear in a nebulous sense, yeah, but it's more directly about brand extension and recognition. Branding is arguably more important to the marketing departments of most consumer-product corporations than the hard-sell, because with branding, you aren't selling a specific shoe that is designed to do a specific thing, you're selling the idea of the company as a certain lifestyle/mindset/image. From strong brand recognition comes more market recognizeability, and then the hard-sell becomes easier. example: Shoe ad (selling specifically the nike vapor, granted also plays into brand identity) Nike ad (selling athleticism, fitness, coolness, &c, no specific product)

By: Humanzee

Humanzee — Sat, 08 May 2010 06:59:27 -0800

Looks like someone's rediscovered sinanju. Let me know when they can dodge bullets.

By: tybeet

tybeet — Sat, 08 May 2010 07:02:00 -0800

This video was on their blog, which is pretty amazing.

By: rageagainsttherobots

rageagainsttherobots — Sat, 08 May 2010 07:02:29 -0800

It's definitely a shoe commercial, but at least it's a little bit amusing. They should have put a logo for the show company at the end of the video.

By: MrBobaFett

MrBobaFett — Sat, 08 May 2010 07:14:09 -0800

Ads don't sell products, ads make me aware of products. Reviews sell products, good products sell them selves.

By: KokuRyu

KokuRyu — Sat, 08 May 2010 07:16:53 -0800

Without this post I would never have thought about buying Merrill shoes. Thanks, MetaFilter!

By: yeloson

yeloson — Sat, 08 May 2010 07:16:55 -0800

I am amused at how extreme sports vids always have the "life changing philosophy" where they try to make whatever it is sound deep. "Whenever you're riding that bike, you just feel... the oneness of everything. You just have to let go. Use the Force. Listen to Xenu. Can you feel it Highlander?" etc.

By: pyramid termite

pyramid termite — Sat, 08 May 2010 07:21:06 -0800

where i live you can walk on water just about every january

By: Increase

Increase — Sat, 08 May 2010 07:34:36 -0800

That was so fake. I could see the ropes holding them up. - 4 year old nephew after watching Tom and Jerry walk 10 yards off a cliff before falling.

By: Evilspork

Evilspork — Sat, 08 May 2010 07:48:25 -0800

The purpose of a shoe ad, ultimately, is to sell shoes. A lot of people talked about the Burger King "Herb" campaign, but it didn't sell Whoppers, and it was a failure. They got you talking about shoes and burgers. Just because you didn't buy a shoe or burger THAT MINUTE doesn't mean the ad was a failure. You can hold a grudge and not buy something because you hated the ad, but the vast majority of people won't. The purpose of advertising is to get you, next time you think "Hey, I could go for a mountaineering shoe/fast food meal", to then think "Hey, now that I already want a mountaineering shoe/fast food meal, why don't I get Hi Tech shoes/a Whopper?"

By: warbaby

warbaby — Sat, 08 May 2010 07:48:40 -0800

next up, air mountaineering....

By: quarsan

quarsan — Sat, 08 May 2010 08:02:38 -0800

warbaby, I've done that. It's called falling off.

By: inigo2

inigo2 — Sat, 08 May 2010 08:37:01 -0800

I really want to market those shoes to people who buy "The Secret" books. Well if you think about it real hard, then it'll happen.

By: Artw

Artw — Sat, 08 May 2010 08:48:36 -0800

/Blink. Sounds like a great idea!

By: bottlebrushtree

bottlebrushtree — Sat, 08 May 2010 08:54:32 -0800

fake, where do i send the bill for my time?

By: a womble is an active kind of sloth

a womble is an active kind of sloth — Sat, 08 May 2010 09:11:00 -0800

> It's about 70 mph.</em So how big would your shoes need to be, so that you could do this at human-running speed, using snow-shoe type things? It looks like a lot of fun, even if it is fake.

By: a womble is an active kind of sloth

a womble is an active kind of sloth — Sat, 08 May 2010 09:11:28 -0800

oops, '>'

By: qwip

qwip — Sat, 08 May 2010 09:57:54 -0800

Fun. I'm pretty sure that it's done by hanging them off of a line, hence the need to "run in a arc". They keep to the circle that would be drawn out by hanging from a long cable. I don't think there is anything under the water, but perhaps something is there just to give them grip so they keep moving. Still, it would be fun to do regardless of being a gag.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Sat, 08 May 2010 10:07:54 -0800

I think it's done by having some wood or something underneath the water that they run on. Then when they want to fall they just step off of it.

By: Skygazer

Skygazer — Sat, 08 May 2010 10:56:19 -0800

I couldn't stop laughing at this even as I wanted to believe that surface tension manipulated and impacted just in the right manner with water repellent sneakers might make this a reality, but those guys were such an awesome parody of a certain type of outdoors-type mountain climbing, snowboarding Oakley-fied headband wearing dingus.

By: Artw

Artw — Sat, 08 May 2010 10:57:02 -0800

Forcefields!

By: Skygazer

Skygazer — Sat, 08 May 2010 10:58:47 -0800

It's already been calculated how fast a person would have to run to do the jesus lizard trick. David Yow is usually just standing in one spot when he pulls his scrotum sack out of his pants though...

By: Burhanistan

Burhanistan — Sat, 08 May 2010 10:59:30 -0800

Infidels. This is done purely with bible reading and Red Bull.

By: dephlogisticated

dephlogisticated — Sat, 08 May 2010 11:08:17 -0800

No, that's not my trick, Michael. ...it's my illusion!

By: Damienmce

Damienmce — Sat, 08 May 2010 11:47:29 -0800

I'm not sure if Hi Tec do win. They always have and always will be a bit weird and shit. One of those weird brands like Diadora, Patrick, Admiral, Head or Dunlop who always seem to make the kits for 2nd division Scottish football teams.

By: hal_c_on

hal_c_on — Sat, 08 May 2010 13:13:24 -0800

Can we stop spreading this bs on metafilter as "viral". Its not viral...the OP is just trying to make it so. Not cool dude.

By: bonefish

bonefish — Sat, 08 May 2010 14:53:01 -0800

It's a brilliant parody of all those xtreme sports adumentaries. I lol'd when I saw the waking up bit, like surfers on dawn patrol. All the cliches of the genre are there. Well done!

By: six-or-six-thirty

six-or-six-thirty — Sat, 08 May 2010 23:21:15 -0800

In all fairness, as a spoof of most sport-porn movies, it's pretty dead on. I love to watch my XTREME mountaineering, surfing, and skiing movies, but they all seem to have pretty much the same format (disregarding the ones that focus on conservation--they're a different beast), and this is it. So I, for one, am happy enough for a clever and mildly entertaining video to also show to my boyfriend and convince him that it's real. It worked for a few minutes.

By: disillusioned

disillusioned — Sun, 09 May 2010 01:58:37 -0800

hal_c_on, What a wonderfully cynical mischaracterization of what I'm "trying" to make so. When I first saw it, I had a "huh" moment that lasted a beat and then sniffed around a bit and saw everyone else claiming it was fake and such but decided to post here anyway because a) the video was entertaining to me, and visually interesting b) I wanted people to speculate on how it was done (wires vs. plexiglass vs. whatever) and c) because it gave me an opportunity to use the word "Christing". Beyond that, a friend of mine linked to it innocuously on Twitter, I noticed it looked like it may just be a viral deal (hence the mention in the post itself), but hadn't really studied all of the nuance to determine it was a single brand's effort/possible Pepsi Blue. Finally, it was viral in the sense that I saw it on a bunch of blogs and such elsewhere when I searched to see if it had been posted here. Not because I posted it here. Down, good sir.

By: Blasdelb

Blasdelb — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 23:52:07 -0800

Hi-Tec USA has noticed