David Blaine’s “Ascension” | Know Your Meme

Overview

David Blaine’s “Ascension” refers to a stunt pulled by magician and performer David Blaine in which he strapped himself to several helium balloons and floated 18,000 feet above Arizona. The stunt was a YouTube original and was live-streamed at Blaine’s height.

Background

On August 18th, 2020, Blaine announced he would be attempting a stunt in which he floated thousands of miles in the air while strapped to several helium balloons (shown below). Prior to performing the stunt, Blaine underwent rigorous training in skydiving and breathing in low oxygen levels. Blaine originally planned to float over the Hudson River in New York, but inclement weather forced a change of venue to Arizona.

Developments

The stunt began on September 2nd, 2020 at 10:45 P.M. EST, and was streamed on YouTube (shown below). Blaine eventually rose to 24,900 feet before parachuting safely to the ground.

The stream drew the attention of Twitter users, who commented excitedly on the stunt as it was going on. Twitter Events covered the ongoing reactions as the stunt was happening. User @TheNasher61 praised Blaine, writing, “okay, this @davidblaine stunt is actually sick. what a view,” (shown below, left). User @FredTJoseph joked, “With all of the mishaps of 2020 David Blaine is certainly optimistic to be flying 25,000 feet in the air by holding on to balloons,” gaining over 230 retweets and 1,000 likes (shown below, right).

Others made jokes using images from the stream. For example, Twitter user @MaggieSerota joked “when my tinder date says he’s ‘fluent in sarcasm,'” gaining over 150 likes (shown below, left). On Reddit, user combatcvic posted a marijuana joke to /r/trees, gaining over 450 points (shown below, right).

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