“That video isn’t an act, that’s coming from the heart and soul. It resonated with working people because we have no voice in this country.”
By Poppy Noor
The Guardian (4/24/20)
Vic DiBitetto is a performer, so he’s used to drawing in big crowd – but he didn’t quite expect that a recent video he made would be viewed over 10m times.
The near five-minute rant about the government’s response to the coronavirus shows DiBitetto, a New Yorker, enunciating so much that spit flies around him in the car. His face is red and he barely finishes a sentence before he is tripping over the next.
“This was totally unexpected,” says DiBitetto about the virality of his video, but, he adds: “Obviously I struck a nerve.”
DiBitetto, a comedian from Brooklyn, decided to film the clip in his car because he didn’t want to upset his wife: he knows he has a propensity to curse and spit when he is angry. He had to cancel all of his shows due to the Covid-19 pandemic and, with no money coming in, he has been relying on his wife to pay the bills.
“We understand we have to [stay home] – quarantine, safe distance – saves lives. But I am not working, I have no income coming in. [They are offering] $1,200 – what does that do? There’s gotta be a better plan for this,” he says.
DiBitetto describes himself as working class (“I’m not Ivy League, I was born in Brooklyn, I was raised in the streets,” he says when I mention all the love his strong New York accent got online). He knows the American working class is hurting right now, which spurs him. He says one woman contacted him from her death bed, to say the video hit the nail on the head. Others, he says, think he should run for president.
“Do you know how frustrating it is to see the government bailing out banks and airlines? Here we are saving for a rainy day, how come they didn’t save for a rainy day? Now we gotta bail them out with our tax money?” he says.
Does he believe that there isn’t enough to go around?
“There’s money out there but it’s going to the wrong people,” he says.
DiBitetto believes that the video resonated because people could see the raw anger and emotion throughout. …
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