BLOCK OR CHARGE: How Rex Chapman Started the š Video Series
Rex Chapmanās third and inexplicably most popular phase of public life began on January 10, when he saw a surfer receive a perfect dropkick from a flying dolphin.
āI saw this video of a school of dolphins swimming into the shore. There was this surfer going in the other direction. This dolphin came up and hit him square in the chest,ā says Chapman. āRight away, I said to myself: āThatās a fuckinā charge.āā
Phase one of public life for Chapman came from his time as a swaggy, retrospectively underrated combo guard for the Suns, Bullets and Hornets in the early ā90s. He was in a dunk contest. He once held the record for threes in a playoff game. He was from the future.
Then phase two came in retirement, when he was caught stealing from an Apple Store while on prescription painkillers.
Phase three is here and Rex is just as shocked as everybody else. Three words, and a handful of videos of people getting mowed down by rogue animals and household objects, have helped Rex Chapman become a beacon of all that is good on the internet.
Those three words: Block or charge?
āSome guy said the other day, Are you sure you want to be known as the āblock or chargeā guy?ā says Chapman. āI told him itās better than āfelon or drug addictā guy.ā
Chapman posted āBlock or charge?ā as a caption above the dolphin dropkick video. It received 1,200 retweets and 5,000 likes. So he kept at it.
Next was a video of a woman on a Vespa clumsily cruising into a Hyundai in traffic. (Clear block, the car was still moving.) Four days later, it was a 2-year-old getting lit up by a comically giant beach ball. (Definite charge. He kept his position and the ball was out of control.)
āIt just sort of snowballed from there,ā Chapman says.
By April, it was hard to find one of these that wasnāt going viral. Thereās the one with the camel tossing a man by his head around a tree (block on the camel, but clear technical on the guy trying to wrangle him around a palm tree) with almost 2,000 retweets. Or the escaped cow being chased by police that tackled a random pedestrian on the sidewalk who did not expect to see a cow there (block; cow was in the restricted area).
On Twitter, where the world is always on fire, Rex Chapmanās timeline has become an oasis. The world is, in fact, a nightmare filled with escaped cows and too-large beach balls concussing small children.
But at least we can award the concussed kids possession, and maybe two free throws.
āI really wanted off social media. The place became so toxic. I just wanted off. But I have people who employ me who told me I needed social media,ā says Chapman. āThankfully, now I have this. Whatās cool is that itās sort of a break for everyone now.ā
Former NBA players and celebrities reply to Rex with block or charge calls all the time now. Chris Hayes, Michael Rapaport, Nick Swardson, even the immortal Scot Pollard. Sitting with his daughter the night before this interview, he heard Neil Everett ask the question on SportsCenter.
With the NFL being the NFL, and the NBA gaining viewers in weird nooks all over the world as people get better access to streaming video, itās a glaring example of why the NBA might become the countryās biggest sport in our lifetime.
āYouāve gotta know basketball a little bit. āWere they set? Where were their feet?āā says Chapman. āMy favorites are the ones where people are willfully ignorant or drunk and get hurt but not die.ā
The world is chaos. āBlock or chargeā provides an answer. Specifically, two answers, and if a drunk guy is involved, itās almost always a charge.
āI find myself doing it now in public, outside,ā said Chapman. āNow everythingās a block or a charge.ā
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Ben Collins is a writer and reporter for NBC News. Heās also a SLAM columnist and writes The Outlet, a monthly column in which BC muses onā¦well, whatever he wants. Follow him on Twitter @oneunderscore_.
Photo via Getty.
