Fell Down The Apple Stairs

2021viral videoclassic

Fell Down The Apple Stairs is a viral TikTok video from September 2021 showing user @medazelli tripping down the glass spiral staircase at Apple's Manhattan store. The clip spawned months of running-joke reuploads, fake hospital updates, and bait-and-switch skits that made the fall a recurring TikTok bit.

fail memesbait and switch memestiktok memesaccidental fame memesparticipatory video memes

Overview

Fell Down The Apple Stairs, also called Apple Stairs, is a viral TikTok clip from user @medazelli showing him tripping down the glass spiral staircase at Apple's West 14th Street store in Manhattan1. The video's fame grew less from the fall itself and more from @medazelli's habit of reuploading the same footage with new captions, fake hospital updates, and bait-and-switch setups4.

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TikTok

The staircase in the clip is a well-known Apple retail fixture. Apple's Meatpacking District store opened in December 2007 with a three-story glass staircase that Cult of Mac described as the most complex glass staircase built at the time, a design Steve Jobs helped invent2.

How It Spread

Through late September and October 2021, @medazelli kept remixing the clip. A September 25th extended cut that spliced the fall together with chopper footage and hospital shots hit over 10 million views in a month1. On October 1st, a video captioned "Apple applauding me after I got out of the hospital from falling on their stairs" pulled 19.7 million views in under four weeks, with @medazelli replying to a top comment that he was "the Khabane Lame of falling down stairs"4.

By mid-October he shifted into bait-and-switch mode. An October 15th post opens with a fake 20th Century Fox intro that cuts to an "The Apple Stairs" title card, and an October 17th "face reveal" cuts to the fall clip instead of his actual face1. Other TikTokers like @demonhellfart and @duckymanofficial posted response videos joking about the endless reuploads4.

References soon jumped off TikTok. On October 18th, Twitter user @okyspaz shared a photoshopped book cover of a person in a full cast at the base of the stairs and wrote that someone should write a book about the guy who fell3.

How to Use This Meme

The Apple Stairs template is a bait-and-switch. Users typically frame a video as being about something unrelated, a movie trailer, a car logo, a face reveal, then reveal the fall clip as the punchline1. Common versions add fake IV-bag or applause footage to extend @medazelli's ongoing narrative of injury and miraculous recovery4.

Frequently Asked Questions

Fell Down The Apple Stairs

2021viral videoclassic

Fell Down The Apple Stairs is a viral TikTok video from September 2021 showing user @medazelli tripping down the glass spiral staircase at Apple's Manhattan store. The clip spawned months of running-joke reuploads, fake hospital updates, and bait-and-switch skits that made the fall a recurring TikTok bit.

fail memes bait and switch memes tiktok memes accidental fame memes participatory video memes

Overview

Fell Down The Apple Stairs, also called Apple Stairs, is a viral TikTok clip from user @medazelli showing him tripping down the glass spiral staircase at Apple's West 14th Street store in Manhattan1. The video's fame grew less from the fall itself and more from @medazelli's habit of reuploading the same footage with new captions, fake hospital updates, and bait-and-switch setups4.

▶

Watch Video

TikTok

The staircase in the clip is a well-known Apple retail fixture. Apple's Meatpacking District store opened in December 2007 with a three-story glass staircase that Cult of Mac described as the most complex glass staircase built at the time, a design Steve Jobs helped invent2.

How It Spread

Through late September and October 2021, @medazelli kept remixing the clip. A September 25th extended cut that spliced the fall together with chopper footage and hospital shots hit over 10 million views in a month1. On October 1st, a video captioned "Apple applauding me after I got out of the hospital from falling on their stairs" pulled 19.7 million views in under four weeks, with @medazelli replying to a top comment that he was "the Khabane Lame of falling down stairs"4.

By mid-October he shifted into bait-and-switch mode. An October 15th post opens with a fake 20th Century Fox intro that cuts to an "The Apple Stairs" title card, and an October 17th "face reveal" cuts to the fall clip instead of his actual face1. Other TikTokers like @demonhellfart and @duckymanofficial posted response videos joking about the endless reuploads4.

References soon jumped off TikTok. On October 18th, Twitter user @okyspaz shared a photoshopped book cover of a person in a full cast at the base of the stairs and wrote that someone should write a book about the guy who fell3.

How to Use This Meme

The Apple Stairs template is a bait-and-switch. Users typically frame a video as being about something unrelated, a movie trailer, a car logo, a face reveal, then reveal the fall clip as the punchline1. Common versions add fake IV-bag or applause footage to extend @medazelli's ongoing narrative of injury and miraculous recovery4.

Frequently Asked Questions