What killed Barney the Dinosaur – TikTok trend
TikTokers have been trying to find out ‘what killed Barney the Dinosaur?’ What actually happened to the popular children’s character? Here’s everything we know.
Trending video social media app, TikTok, is full of a massive number of different trends from time to time, from popular dances that sweep the app, to bizarre challenges that have everybody getting involved and uploading their videos.
Barney the Dinosaur is a purple dinosaur character known from the wildly popular children’s TV show Barney & Friends. Now, users are sharing their reactions to finding out ‘What killed Barney the Dinosaur’ on TikTok. The popular children’s show Barney & Friends lasted for 14 seasons and almost two decades. Years after cancellation, Peacock’s documentary explored the shocking reactions to the beloved children’s icon.
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What killed Barney the Dinosaur?
tikTok users have recently been uploading screenshots of the google result they got as to ‘what killed Barney the Dinosaur,’ with one of the top results reading, “in November 1997, Barney the Dinosaur was stabbed to death by the New York City Police Department.”
The goodnews is that Barney is not canonically dead. The above sentence is from an Independent article discussing the new documentary ‘I Love You, You Hate Me,’ which explores how the children’s character became a target for hate.
The incident the article refers to happened during a Thanksgiving parade, in which a huge Barney inflatable had to be deflated by the New York City Police Department after it became hard to control. The clip has over 29 million views on YouTube.
Users have been going viral for sharing their reactions to the bizarre incident, and more people are joining in the trend as it spreads across the platform.
Barney’s Dark Past
Apart from Barney the Dinosaur’s innocent intentions, just after the show aired, the cast and crew became subject to so-called “Barney Bashing”. Bob West, the original voice of Barney, said that he received death threats from people who hated the show.
He said: “I started getting emails.. some of them were absolutely hateful. They were very explicit and very violent.”
“Then they went on to say they were going to come and find me and they were going to kill me,” he said.
How TikTok Made the ‘What killed Barney The Dinosaur’ Trend?
TikTok users googling ”What killed Barney the Dinosaur?” are all coming across an article from the Independent which leads people to believe that Barney was brutally murdered.
The article’s first statement reads: “In November 1997, Barney the Dinosaur was stabbed to death by the New York City Police Department.”
However, the article soon goes on to reveals that an air balloon of Barney the Dinosaur deflated in the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade of 1997 and that the stabbing referred to the balloon.
In the trending videos such as the TikTok below, only the initial snippet is shown, fooling many.
New York Police Department had to cut down the Dinosaur after a gust of wind ripped the balloon Barney open.
Many users have taken the articles’ opening at face value and have taken before and after videos of themselves reacting to the news.
But despite what TikTokers are being lead to believe, the real Barney the Dinosaur did not die. The giant balloon, however, did not make it.
