Social Media Slobbers at X-Rated Seattle Drone Show Meme, Now Debunked as G-Rated (and Old)

Exhibit 7,820,403,994,962-A of how social media dramatically lowers human intelligence. In reaction to Seattle’s magnificent New Year’s Eve fireworks and drone show, countless people were left obsessed with the notion that one of the UAV formations in it was actually a detail of intimate female anatomy. Almost impossibly, the idiocy got even worse from there.

Props to Seattle alternative news biweekly The Stranger, which not only called out this early runner for the 2024 Top Moronics Award, but also did the leg work to discover the depth of stupidity behind the display of bovine malleability. In doing so, the paper threw a pail of cold, cacophony-silencing water on what for many online observers had become the major point of interest in Seattle’s otherwise spectacular December 31 drone show performance: the UAVs flashed them something in they sky they quite clearly don’t get enough of in life.

“Did You See That Drone Vulva in the Sky on New Year’s Eve?” The Stranger echoed the ambient buzz in its January 2 headline, before administering a gentle, albeit life-extinguishing tap to the head of its own question. “No, You Didn’t.”

In her accompanying 700-word story, The Stranger‘s Vivian McCall sheds light on what had become the only spot of fascination in Seattle’s darkened sky. In doing so, paper put the boots to the December 31 social media posts (and countless reposts) by Northwest pop culture social media outfit SeattleSubmissions1. 

Even before 2024 had been rung in, SeattleSubmissions1 published what appeared to be video of that evening’s T-Mobile light, fireworks, and drone show at the Space Needle, asking the question that immediately took possession of arrested adolescent male minds that night (in addition to most others).

The answer, as The Stranger noted, was negative – as its story proves with double dose of “this is how dumb you are” clarification. 

For starters, the clip posted and (according to the possibly hyperbolic phrasing of The Stranger) “viewed millions of times,” was determined to have come from the December 31, 2022 T-Mobile Seattle show – the first to have incorporated drones. In other words, old news – but fake news to boot.

Because the paper’s careful review of footage from that year-old performance found the alleged private bits to have actually been a spinning top formation. Screen captures demonstrate how the internal layers of that aerial dervish evolve into three-dimensional shapes as it revolves, ultimately ending up – ever so briefly – in the form the set countless Gustave Courbet wannabes aglow.

Thus, a Romper Room prop becomes a (air quote) gag (air quote) out of “Porkies.” Ban social media now.

Another tipoff to the slobbering set – this one a real-time clue – should have been the 7:15 p.m. time stamp on the initial post. That purported scene of as-it-happened simulated indecent exposure would have needed a time-warp to have come from what the Space Needle site announced as “10-minute light shows happening at 10:00PM, 10:30PM, 11:00PM and 11:30PM.”

Meaning, someone at SeattleSumbissions1 not only became uncontrollably horny over nothing before millions of thrilled social media watchers, but was also dismally, um, premature with their non-titillating upload.

Fans of actual drone shows are advised to check out the entire Sky Elements-choreographed performance in Seattle, featuring 500 UAVs interplaying with pyrotechnic and ground-beamed lights. It’s quite an eye-grabber, even without the X-Rated telegraphing of randy-addled kibitzers.

Image: T-Mobile/Seattle Space Needle