YOUTUBE IDIOTS
Darwin duo film themselves risking their lives for views on the internet
TWO Darwin brothers are risking their lives for the entertainment of a pathetically small group of YouTube viewers.
Tom Clarke and his “mad c**t” brother Robin last month began posting videos online of their daring escapades, including sitting on the roof of a ute as it barrels along a road at Mandorah, taunting crocodiles, and scaling radio towers despite clear “no trespassing” signs.
A series of videos – none of which had more than 120 views as of yesterday – show the brothers “doing a few crazy things”.
The brothers have seemingly avoided injury so far, except for when Robin “f***ed his head up” by crashing a dirt bike without wearing a helmet.
In one video, the duo take a “risky” walk across the old Adelaide River Railway bridge, with “Tommy” tiptoeing on the edge of the disused bridge’s railing.
On his Facebook page, Robin brags about the video being the “biggest and most dangerous” so far.
After the two finish crossing the bridge, Tommy turns to his brother and says: “You made it Rob, I’m impressed man. He hates heights but he just walked across that and across Adelaide River with crocs in there.”
In the same video, the duo crawl through a hole in a fence and scale a communications tower near Adelaide River, with Tom at one point hanging outside the railing. Workers scaling the same towers are required to wear safety harnesses and have specific training.
In another video, the duo decide not to cut a hole in a barbed wire fence to climb Charles Point lighthouse because of what Rob describes as “a clear sign that we’re trespassing”.
“There’ll be people that report us on Facebook, because they’re c**ts.”
The pair discuss the option of cutting a hole in the fence. “(We) don’t have to show how we got in, just go, ‘oh look there’s a hole in the fence again’,” Rob says, before they abandon their plan to scale the lighthouse and instead finish off their afternoon with some high speed “rooftop surfing”.
“This is the sort of s**t you can do in the NT man … go and see a lighthouse … have a good feed, do a bit of f***ing car surfing … not many places you can do that,” Tommy says.
Territory Police Duty Superintendent Shaun Gill said: “Videos such as these are examples of extremely dangerous and foolhardy behaviour and decision making. This sort of behaviour not only puts the individual at risk; it also encourages others to engage in similar dangerous acts. It also creates potentially extremely dangerous situations to which police, fire and rescue and emergency services respond when these stunts invariably go wrong.”
WHAT is it about being in front of a camera that makes people do stupid things?
Barely 100 people have watched any of the Clarke brothers’ YouTube videos, in which they climb radio towers without harnesses, “roof surf” at high speed, and tiptoe on the edge of bridges and buildings, so far off the ground that a fall would almost certainly prove fatal. It doesn’t get much dumber than that. On Facebook, one of the brothers urges his friends to start watching the videos showing “climbing weird and dangerous stuff in different places all over Australia”. These are grown men! Not to put too fine of a point on it, but it is surprising they’ve made it this far.
If someone doesn’t put them in handcuffs sometime soon, some poor emergency services worker is going to be getting a phone call telling them to come and clean up a dead body.
We’re not standing in the way of anyone having a bit of fun.
But seriously, grow up.