A North Carolina TV weatherman recently found himself delivering the news with a pair of cartoon googly eyes plastered over his face after he accidentally activated Facebook’s facial filters before going live.
But hey, maybe he was just trying to make the news exciting again.
On February 20, WLOS ABC 13 anchor Justin Hinton was out in the field covering Madison County’s first “legitimate” snowfall of the season.
According to a Facebook post he made after the fact, right before he went live on the social media site, he “somehow activated a filter generator.”
The photographer he was working with that day apparently mentioned something about the screen showing weird faces.
However, Hinton brushed the problem off and said “it would probably go away soon.”
Well, it didn’t.
As the reporter began discussing the snowy weather, he was totally unaware that he’d managed to turn on some of Facebook’s most hilarious filters.
The live segment, which lasted just over one minute, sees Hinton become bombarded with various cartoon looks, including googly eyes, a wizard hat, and a space helmet.
The funniest part of the entire situation is that the journalist had absolutely no clue what was going on.
So he simply continued to deliver his serious weather report, even while sporting an adorable pair of kitty ears.
In fact, Hinton only became aware of the filters after checking the flurry of viewer reactions his broadcast was getting on Facebook.
“Wait,” he can be heard saying after he’s moved off-screen, “did I have a weird face?”
After a long, revealing pause, Hinton says, “Oh, there are special effects on the phone.”
Of course by then it was far too late.
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Honestly, it’s no mystery why the clip has gone viral all over social media.
On Facebook the video currently has nearly 4,000 reactions from people who are positively cracking up at poor Hinton’s filter gaffe.
And on Twitter, the clip has more than 54,000 views.
“Watched this happen live on Facebook and was very amused,” one user commented. “This is the joy of live broadcasting, right?”
Thankfully, Hinton is taking his newfound viral celebrity status in stride.
“If you can’t laugh at yourself, what’s the point of laughter?” he wrote online. “I hope you enjoyed the snow day, and remember to smile and laugh!”
