Shovel Fight

Overview

Shovel Fight Video refers to an amateur recording which shows a teenage girl striking another girl in the back of her head with a shovel during a physical brawl. As with previous “fight videos” that have gone viral on the Internet, the footage spawned a number of remix videos after it began circulating on Vine in early May 2014.

Background

On May 4th, 2014, Viner Josh Officer posted a video clip of a girl being hit in the head with a shovel as she retreats from another teenage girl’s porch (shown below). In the next 48 hours, the video garnered upwards of 510,000 tweets, 75,000 revines and 73,0000 likes.

Notable Developments

Online Reaction

On May 5th, 2014, YouTuber gumbo uploaded an extended version of the video, showing the girls engaging in a fist fight prior to the shovel being thrown (shown below). When one of the girl’s retreats to her home in order to retrieve a “BB gun,” she is pursued to her front porch by her rival. In retaliation, she grabs and shovel and hits her opponent in the head. Within 24 hours, the video gained over 1.05 million views before being removed from the site.

The same day, the video was reposted to Worldstar Hiphop,^[2] where it received upwards of 2.3 million views and 8,200 comments in 24 hours. Also on May 5th, Redditor radrico submitted the video to the /r/videos^[1] subreddit, where it gathered more than 6,200 upvotes and 2,100 comments that day. Additionally, the video was reposted to the /r/amateurfights^[5] and /r/streetfights^[6] subreddits.

Vine Parodies

On May 5th, Viner Zachary Butler posted an edited version of the Vine clip, featuring the 2012 hip hop song “M.A.A.D City” by Kendrick Lamar (shown below, left). In 24 hours, the video gained over 197,000 likes and 181,000 revines. The same day, Viner Music Don’t Match posted a mashup of a yeet dance video combined with the shovel fight (shown below, right).

Identity of Victim

On May 5th, Twitter user Miranda Lynn^[3] (a.k.a. Miranda Fugate) tweeted at Worldstar Hip Hop identifying herself as the girl who was hit in the head with the shovel. That day, the sports blog Larry Brown Sports^[4] highlighted several notable tweets from her feed and included a link to her Facebook page. As of May 6th, her Twitter account has been suspended.

Death Hoax

That same day, the hashtag #RIPShovelFightGirl began circulating on Twitter, accompanied with a fake news story reporting that Lynn had died after the fight due to complications from head injuries sustained from the shovel blow.^[11]

Miranda Fugate died of serious head injuries after being hit with a shovel in the head by an old friend of hers named Emily Powers. The whole thing was caught on video and posted all over the internet and generated around 500,000 video views in just 2 days. In the video, the two girls begin fist fighting outside Emily’s house for a few seconds before Emily threatened to go inside her house and bring out an air soft gun which shoots plastic BB’s, when Miranda suddenly charged at Emily, Emily grabbed a nearby shovel and “cracked” Miranda in the dome. If you haven’t seen the video, watch the video below: At first, It only seemed like a minor head injury as Miranda also temporarily lost one ear’s hearing. Suddenly, while watching ‘Mean Girls’ at home that same day, Miranda collapsed and died instantly. Doctors are saying she died of severe head trauma. “She was a good girl” Miranda’s mother cried to reporters, “I mean, she was sort of a bully, but she did not deserve to get molly whooped like that, especially with a shovel right to the head”. Emily will not be charged with second degree murder but instead man-slaughter as she was only protecting herself, and succeeded.

Viner Josh Officer subsequently posted a new Vine video in which Lynn reveals that she is alive and is “doing alright” (shown below).

News Media Coverage

On May 5th, several news sites published articles about the video, including Deadspin,^[7] The Huffington Post,^[8] Larry Brown Sports,^[4] Guyism^[9] and MStarz News.^[10]