Know Your Meme: Epic Beard Man

Epic Beard Man became a meme literally overnight. On February 16th, 2010 Iyanna Washington, a college student from Oakland, CA uploaded the video “AC TRANSIT BUS FIGHT I AM A MOTHERFUCKER” to Youtube. The video she recorded she recorded featured a 50 year old black man and a 67 year old white man wearing a T-shirt that reads “I AM A MOTHERFUCKER” having a heated argument fueled by racial ignorance resulting in a violent fight. I actually saw the video the day it was posted, but I didn't think it would spin-off into something this huge.




Within 24 hours, the video amassed over one million views and spawned countless threads on 4chan’s /b/ where hundreds of various image macros have been created. The older white man in the video has been identified as Thomas Bruso, AKA Tom Slick, AKA Vietnam Tom; infamous in Oakland for his reputation of belligerence. Prior to the discovery of his identity, the internet had already dubbed him Epic Beard Man.
After the black man’s nose is broken, he says “bring an ambulance” which has been misheard as both “bring M&M’s” and “bring Amber Lamps” due to a combination of his dialect and facial injury. Amber Lamps has also come to be used as a pseudonym for the girl sitting next to the black man in the video. "Amber Lamps" is now also becoming very popular over the internet with people wanting to find out her true identity.

With Epic Beard Man being so new. It's amazing at how fast information on the confrontation and the members involved have been discovered. The video is only 6 days old, yet CBS has done a story on the video, as well as interview Iyanna Washington. Washington has also already posted a reaction video to the raid done by youtubers and people who frequent /b/. This meme is still being researched and it will be interesting to see if it has already reached its peak, or if it will keep getting bigger.