Man with afro hairstyle in black jacket standing against grey backdrop from Afro Ninja video

Afro Ninja

2004viral videoclassic

Published July 25, 2026

Afro Ninja is a 2004 viral video of stuntman Mark Allen Hicks botching a backflip with nunchucks during a Nike commercial audition, collapsing on his back mid-attempt. The clip leaked to eBaum's World that year and became one of the earliest fail-video memes of the pre-YouTube web.

fail memes pre youtube viral videos early internet memes accidental fame memes advertising memes

Overview

Afro Ninja is a short 2004 video clip of stuntman Mark Allen Hicks attempting a backflip while holding nunchucks, over-rotating, and slamming flat on his back in front of the camera1. The footage is only a few seconds long, shot on a bare soundstage against a plain backdrop, which gives the wipeout an almost staged, comic-book quality3.

The clip is one of the defining fail videos of the pre-YouTube web, spread first through eBaum's World and email forwards before hitting streaming platforms1. Viewers latched onto the contrast between Hicks' serious martial-arts stance and the instant, total collapse that follows, which many first-time watchers assumed had to be faked3.

Origin & Background

Platform
Nike commercial audition (source) / eBaum's World (viral spread)
Creator
Mark Allen Hicks
Date
2004

The video was filmed in 2004 during an audition for Nike's "Chamber of Fear" commercial series starring LeBron James, with Hicks trying out for a background nunchakuka role styled after Enter the Dragon actor Jim Kelly1. In later interviews Hicks said he was heavily jetlagged during the audition, which he blamed for the botched flip, and he was reportedly seen leaving the shoot with a bloody nose12.

The footage was uploaded to eBaum's World later that year and went viral through forums and email chains1. Hicks has said he never learned who leaked the tape and initially wanted to hurt whoever did it, telling one interviewer, "I felt violated. But I got over it"1. On October 22nd, 2004, blogger Andy Baio publicly identified the man in the video as Mark Allen Hicks after crowdsourcing the answer through a $50 Google Answers bounty2.

How It Spread

In 2005, Namco ran a set of TV commercials for the PS2 game Tekken 5 that mimicked Hicks' audition setup, featuring amateur martial artists failing in front of a blank backdrop under the tagline "Not everyone has what it takes"5. The Afro Ninja clip was later spliced into compilations of those ads, and many viewers wrongly assumed the Tekken spots were where the meme originally came from5.

A YouTube upload titled "afro ninja" was posted by user airmoney on January 17th, 2007, giving the clip a permanent home on the platform; the upload passed 19.5 million views by 20254. In May 2008, Weezer's "Pork and Beans" music video featured Hicks himself recreating the flip and then successfully fighting off a group of ninjas as part of a montage of early web celebrities6. On June 4th, 2009, Comedy Central's Tosh.0 debuted its "Web Redemption" segment with Hicks, letting him land the stunt cleanly on camera7.

Hicks leaned into the notoriety by writing, directing and starring in the 2009 direct-to-DVD action comedy Afro Ninja: Destiny, which reframed the botched flip as part of a rescue plot9. Reviews were harsh, with IGN's write-up calling it "an abysmal waste of time, money and effort"10. A 2010 Business Insider "Where Are They Now" interview covered Hicks' continuing stunt career six years after the clip leaked8, and IMDb credits show he kept working as a Hollywood stunt performer and coordinator long after11. French pop-culture site gpaslaref.fr later wrote that early viewers often assumed the clip was fake because the timing of the fall looked too clean (translated from French)3.

How to Use This Meme

Afro Ninja typically shows up as a reaction clip for any moment of overconfident failure, especially attempts at physical stunts that end in an instant, total wipeout. Common conventions include cutting the video in right at the collapse for maximum contrast, or using a still frame of Hicks mid-fall as a reaction image to bravado that goes wrong.

Frequently Asked Questions