It’s been nearly seven years to the day when a viral video of two guys encountering a sunfish in Boston harbor went viral, and the dialogue still almost brings me to tears.
In my opinion, it’s impossible to watch this video less than three times in a row, every time.
It is the GOAT of wildlife encounter videos, all thanks to six glorious minutes of play-by-play from Mikey Bergin and his pitch-perfect Boston accent.
The wildlife featured here is an ocean sunfish.
The heaviest bony fish in the world, the sunfish looks ridiculous. It’s huge, weighing up to 5,000 pounds and growing up to 11 feet long according to the Monterrey Bay Aquarium.
It’s shaped like a massive disk and looks like it doesn’t have a tail. And to our boy, Mikey, it was “some shit we ain’t never seen before, kid.”
According to Smithsonian Magazine, these bizarre monsters occasionally float near the surface of the water to increase their body temperature. And lucky for all of us, that’s exactly what this particular sunfish was doing when Mikey and his buddy, Jay, were out fishing.
The rest is exuberant, profanity-laced, erroneous, hilarious history.
The many animals that Mikey mistakenly identifies while circling the sunfish include a sea turtle, a “baby fahckin’ whale, bro,” a “floundah,” “a tuna, bro,” and my personal favorite, “Moby Dick!”
His emotions swing from afraid to stoked to compassionate in seconds. He wants to catch it, eat it, help it, bring it to the aquarium, and, more than anything, understand just “what the fuck is that thing.”
He’s having the best day of his life, and he wants the world to know about it.
While Mikey’s “discovery” wasn’t quite as ground-breaking as he expected, the world did find out about it, courtesy of a viral sharing spree on the internet and the pair’s subsequent appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”
In the year after his 15 minutes of fame, Mikey unfortunately struggled with an opioid addiction.
But he was able to use his newfound internet fame to help bring some extra attention to the opioid epidemic during an interview with Athena Health where he shared his recovery journey.
Here’s hoping that Mikey is still getting out on the water, staying sober, and experiencing more “holy shit, Jay” moments out in nature somewhere.
