16

This video has been around for a few years, but the first time I saw this I was shocked and disturbed.

Got talent goes horribly wrong archer [not safe for work]

I have looked online and have found competing information being claimed that the video was a marketing campaign, and other videos claiming this is not true and that it is in fact real.

Snopes further claims that this is Undetermined

Can anybody verify if the video is real and if so, can it be confirmed if the man indeed died? It certainly appears like he did.

5
  • 4
    btw. "NSFW AND GRAPHIC"? srsly, there isn't even a drop of blood in there..
    – vartec
    Commented May 4, 2012 at 12:05
  • This is currently going viral on Facebook. (I think through some FB social engineering, but I am not inclined to check.)
    – Oddthinking
    Commented Apr 14, 2013 at 4:28
  • 4
    Perhaps a short description of the contents of the video is in order?
    – SQB
    Commented Nov 1, 2016 at 17:42
  • Snopes is now showing it as "False". Commented Dec 17, 2018 at 12:09
  • YouTube removed the video, so the link is no longer valid. Does anyone have an updated link?
    – PC Luddite
    Commented Apr 27, 2023 at 3:56

1 Answer 1

41

It's obviously not real. At very first glance it looks like a parody. But since you want some "hard evidence", here it goes.

  • Whole setup is very, very amateur, too amateur to be considered from a show on national TV in Russia (or Ukraine for that matter)
  • TV station logo is: TVД, yet in Cyrillic alphabet there is no V, obviously no TVД station exist
  • It's allegedly Russian show, yet show logo says "Talent" in Latin alphabet
  • Actual Russian "Got Talent" franchise is called Минута славы
  • Caption's second line says "Киева", which would point to Ukraine, rather than Russia
  • But than again, Ukraine Got Talent (Україна має талант) has completely different logo, is show on a different TV station and fully professional setup
  • Caption says "Удивительный братьями ", which is supposed to mean "Amazing brothers", however it's grammatically incorrect (singular adjective instead of plural, and noun in wrong case - instrumental instead of nominative). Same goes for second line, it's also ungrammatical, should either read "з Киева" or just "Киев"
  • No one in the whole video speaks a single word, further showing that whoever made that video had no knowledge of Russian nor Ukrainian
  • The arrow nocking changes color midflight
  • The "victim" falls politely to the ground like he's about to make a snow angel - there's no pain on display, frantic flailing, etc
11
  • 5
    whole setup is very, very amateur, too amateur to be considered from a show on national TV in Russia (or Ukraine for that matter). I have heard the argument that this was auditions to get on the show, the lack of professional stage setup can be explained by this. I do admit though that if I was a camera man and I witnessed someone take an arrow to the head, my first reaction would not be to cue to the judges to capture their reaction. Commented May 4, 2012 at 11:54
  • 5
    @maple_shaft: looks to lame even for an audition. Also in real audition they would say who they are, and what they are gonna perform.
    – vartec
    Commented May 4, 2012 at 12:05
  • 4
    Mixing English and Russian/Ukranian sounds half-way plausible to me, but I did a search for "TVД" and the main hits were for this video, and no hits for it exist within wikipedia.org.
    – Golden Cuy
    Commented May 4, 2012 at 13:28
  • 3
    Why is the use of the Latin alphabet in branding surprising though? Commented Aug 9, 2012 at 11:00
  • 6
    @vartec: not always true. In Italy the show is called Italia's got talent. On the other hand the French have La France a un incroyable talent. Guess it goes down to marketing (having an English title is quite cool in Italy, it would be considered almost preposterous in France)
    – nico
    Commented Sep 16, 2012 at 8:17

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .