madeleine_basketball.avi

October 19, 2022 7:53 PM

The Misremembered History Of The Internet’s Funniest Buzzer-Beater. Brian Feldman published an investigation into the origins of a classic viral video, identifying the kid knocked down by an errant full-court shot and talking to him years later. But then he kept digging—and ultimately revealed that memories, even when they're broadcast on national TV, can be faulty.

Basketball and memory, previously.

posted by thecaddy (13 comments total)

The thing I actually find most striking is the studio audience in 1995 and how completely different everyone looks. I remember adults looking like that, and I’m struck at how they no longer do. It’s both how much clothing aesthetics have changed, and how that level of dressed-up (and hair and makeup) seem wildly over-formal for going to a studio audience taping.
posted by Jon_Evil at 9:16 PM on October 19, 2022 [8 favorites]

Also that they make such a big thing of stressing that the kid wasn't badly hurt.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 1:01 AM on October 20, 2022

I was a big consumer of early internet viral videos, but I don't remember this one at all.
posted by zardoz at 2:25 AM on October 20, 2022 [2 favorites]

New research reveals that not being hit in the head with a basketball at an early age can trigger false memories.
posted by flabdablet at 3:25 AM on October 20, 2022 [6 favorites]

That sure was a lot of work exploring something beyond trivial.
posted by cccorlew at 4:42 AM on October 20, 2022 [3 favorites]

When I was around that little kid's age (10-11... about 40 years ago) I captured someone's pet parakeet that had escaped. This was summer in Chicago, and it was a white parakeet, so it was certainly not a wild bird (there are a handful of parakeets that live year-round in Chicago, strangely enough... but those are Monk Parakeets, which are larger and green).

I got the bird into a pet carrier we had in the garage. That happened. I gave it to my uncle's then-girlfriend, who was a bird lover. That happened. I remember visiting the bird a few times at their apartment. It seemed happy there and the girlfriend was a good parakeet owner.

But to this day, I have no recollection at all as to how I captured it. I had no bird food of any kind as we had no pet birds. I had never handled a bird before and knew next to nothing about tropical birds. I had no net of any kind... we never owned any. I remember being in my neighbor's yard where I saw the critter. I remember seeing the bird like 20 feet away. I remember it flying away from me from bush to tree to fence, back and forth. I remember the girlfriend's name and the kind of hair she had. But I have zero recollection as to how I got that bird safely in the pet carrier.

Brains are weird. Child brains are even weirder. This was an interesting story. Thanks.
posted by SoberHighland at 4:51 AM on October 20, 2022 [9 favorites]

There are some stories I've told often enough because they were told to me, and they're too good not to re-tell - but for a few of them, told for a couple decades, my memory of their provenance has gotten hazy - I can't remember who told them to me, and at a certain part the memory of the story starts to blend with the memory of the memory, and I'm sure that a little ways down the line (if it hasn't happened already) I'll forget the difference between a story I've told and what actually happened to me.
posted by entropone at 6:04 AM on October 20, 2022

SoberHighland, the good news is that, to quote Picard, those are beautiful memories... and no one can take them from you.

The bad news is that you're synthetic.
posted by tigrrrlily at 8:10 AM on October 20, 2022 [10 favorites]

I theorize that getting hit with a basketball thrown like that is not actually particularly uncommon, and probably happened to both of them. I played high school basketball, and probably saw someone heave a basketball like that in a game 30 times or more. They occasionally hit people, or the ceiling.

The one that was filmed is the only point of contention, and the exact time misremembered.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:40 AM on October 20, 2022 [1 favorite]

Memory is weird. One time, I was telling a friend a story about this cat that jumped up and grabbed my chest. He said, “actually, it wasn’t you, the cat jumped on me.” Then he looked down and put his finger through a hole in the chest of his shirt and said, “and I was wearing this shirt.”
posted by snofoam at 3:08 PM on October 20, 2022 [5 favorites]

What I like about this story is that everyone involved seems like a reasonable, fairly thoughtful human being. No one attacked anyone else or doubled down on their story without reason and it gives me a feeling that maybe people aren't all so bad.
posted by Literaryhero at 6:38 PM on October 20, 2022 [6 favorites]

Yeah, the dude saying, "Oh, this just makes that story I've been telling for years even better" is such a sane reaction.

This is a fun set of articles. Thanks, thecaddy!
posted by straight at 11:20 PM on October 20, 2022 [5 favorites]

I have lots of memories that don't quite fit with reality like this. It's incredibly common. I also have a friend who has constructed long comedy routines around all of the stories of our childhood, most of which I remember differently. His versions are definitely funnier. But I don't always know whose memory is correct.

(But my memories of Nelson Mandela dying in the 80s and Berenstain Bears being spelled with an 'e' aren't like that! Those ones were caused by ALIEN TIME TRAVELERS!)
posted by mmoncur at 7:48 AM on October 21, 2022 [3 favorites]