Making the best of being closed due to weather, a Lake Cowichan business decided to hold a “Tube-lympics” for employees and captured a moment that has since gone viral on TikTok.
One of the events in the Tube-lympics was to see who could carry the most tubes at one time, and thus, the Tube Monster was born.
Carrying five tubes on each arm, one around the waist, and two on each leg, The Tube Shack’s employee was buried under 15 tubes and walked away. Due to a technicality, only 13 of the tubes counted towards the competition.
“They couldn’t be touching the ground,” said Aaron Frisby, owner of The Tube Shack in Lake Cowichan, in an interview with CHEK News. “So the bottom two didn’t count because they’re dragging along the ground. But what we found is that most people think it resembles a Pokemon or some kind of Transformer, and that’s what’s really made the video explode.”
Others had different comparisons.
“Me carrying all my groceries in so I don’t have to make a second trip,” D@rren said on the original video.
“…that’s a boss… this is a boss battle,” said Joe1672.
The original video has racked up 2.9 million views on TikTok, then a reposted version with a new Pokemon related sound has another 1.9 million views.
Not only that, the video has been shared by ESPN, where it has another 266K views, and House of Highlights, racking up another 2.4 million views.
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While Frisby says he is happy the video is taking off, he says the timing could have been better.
“I think every business wants a bit of branding in there and some exposure and maybe for it to not happen at the end of the season,” Frisby said. “We’ve only got three or four days left in the season, but we’ll take it. The exposure has been great, and it’s been international and a lot of people are reaching out to us about it.”
While carrying 15 tubes at once may seem impressive, Frisby says it’s not uncommon for the employees to carry a lot of tubes all at once.
“Anyone who visits The Tube Shack does see our employees moving our tubes around and an impressive lot is eight,” Frisby said. “They don’t usually go around the feet when they’re moving tubes, generally, but Alex is pretty good at it.”
Alex is the employee in the Tube Monster video, and Frisby says his reaction to his viral video has been reserved.
“He’s a pretty quiet guy, all I’ve got out of him is ‘oh, it’s pretty cool,'” Frisby joked. “Alex is pretty happy with it, I think. I probably would have liked to see a little bit more visuals of his face, so he could actually be identified but being buried under that many tubes is a bit tough.”
@thetubeshack What do Tube Shack employees do for fun? #lakecowichan #cowichanvalley #tourismcowichan #cowichan #thetubeshack #floatthecow #cowabunga ♬ Powerful cinematic orchestra [war] – Sino
Laura Brougham
