Old US Basketball Meme Shared As ‘Israeli Air Force Celebrations’ After Strikes Against Hezbollah Targets

Celebrations at Israeli air force headquarters after Hezbollah targets were razed to the ground.

The archived version of the tweet can be seen here.

Israel Steps Up Attacks

Israeli airstrikes reportedly battered areas near Beirut again, hours after Hezbollah confirmed that its longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah had been killed in an Israeli bombing that destroyed residential buildings near Lebanon’s capital. Nasrallah’s killing in a command HQ on Friday came barely a week after the deadly detonation of thousands of booby-trapped Hezbollah pagers and hundreds of radios.

Newschecker ran a reverse image search of keyframes, which led us to multiple posts, seen here and here, sharing the video as a meme from as far back as 2017, thus confirming that it predates the Israeli offensive.

A further search led us to a longer version of the viral video on Youtube, dated March 6, 2016, headlined “Carolina Basketball: Locker Room Celebration Post 76-72 Win at Duke”. The viral excerpt can be seen from the 00:36 mark.

We learnt that the basketball coach in the viral video was Roy Williams and that his dance and the celebrations became iconic with respect to sports memes and GIFs, finding its way into multiple compilations, including this ESPN report, dated April 1, 2021, following Williams’ retirement after 33 seasons coaching NCAA basketball in the US.

“Though he will no doubt be remembered for his coaching prowess and propensity to win games, the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductee also garnered a reputation off the court for his viral dance moves and team celebrations… Perhaps none of those moments went more viral than this goofy clip of Williams dancing into the locker room, a video that made its way into internet meme and gif culture as a mainstay,” read a report published in the Fayetteville Observer, dated April 1, 2021, sharing the video, which confirms that the viral video is not related to the Israeli strikes on Hezbollah targets.

Also Read: Viral Video Claiming To Show NH 44 In Jammu & Kashmir Is Actually From China

Result: False

Sources
Youtube video, March 6, 2016
The Fayetteville Observer report, April 1, 2021

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