A restaurant customer was caught in an altercation on camera, where he appeared to take a chair from a pregnant woman, but viewers are on his side.
The story first came to light after one of the women involved, Marissa (@yeaimher238), posted a multiple-part video of the encounter to her TikTok account. Marissa has since made her account private, but several other users have reposted parts of her videos.
The confrontation took place at Mercado González Northgate Market in Costa Mesa, California, a supermarket that also has food stalls where customers can sit and eat. In the first video, a Black man and a group of women appear to be in the middle of an argument.
@glalaxy2 WHO IS THIS GUY??? Last night my family and I went to El Mercado northgate market getting churros at El Moro. When this happened! Honestly i pulled my phone out because you never know what could happen. #Fyp #fy #guyinthebluehat #foryou ♬ original sound – Glalaxy
“Exactly,” the man says. He then picks up a chair from the women’s table and takes it back to his own.
According to the voice-over, Marissa’s sister was saving a chair while the group ordered food. One of the women then tells the man that her dining companion has a newborn.
The person filming adds in another voice-over, “He was with two ladies, and one of them didn’t have a chair. Bro, give her your chair. Don’t take ours.”
@glalaxy2 WHO IS THIS GUY??? Last night my family and I went to El Mercado northgate market getting churros at El Moro. When this happened! Honestly i pulled my phone out because you never know what could happen. #Fyp #fy #guyinthebluehat #foryou ♬ original sound – Glalaxy
Finally, the women try to shame the man, saying that a gentleman would give up his chair. He seems to say that he would have if he knew the woman and also that he is, in fact, dining there with two women.
Toward the end of the video, Marissa claims in another voice-over, “At this point, I wasn’t paying attention to what he was saying because my three-year-old was next to me and told me ‘Mommy, I’m scared.’”
@glalaxy2 WHO IS THIS GUY??? Last night my family and I went to El Mercado northgate market getting churros at El Moro. When this happened! Honestly i pulled my phone out because you never know what could happen. #Fyp #fy #guyinthebluehat #foryou ♬ original sound – Glalaxy
Although it’s unclear how the confrontation started exactly, several online commenters claim that the women took a chair from the man’s table first and that he was simply taking it back. The Daily Dot was unable to verify this via video or any eyewitnesses.
Viewers were on the man’s side
While some viral posts divide online users, this one had pretty much everyone united on the same side—the man’s. TikTok user Vellvettt (@velvetlefayee) posted a reaction video in which she blasted the women and neatly summarized the alleged story.
“Y’all seen that video of that Black guy taking a chair from them white women because they took it first, and now they started to play victim and get on social media and wanted to record and act like they was the victims when the whole time they took the chair from his table that he was sitting on with people?” she asks.
Vellvettt also points out that there are clearly other free chairs and, in the caption, writes, “The audacity be crazyyy.”
@velvetlefayee The audacity be crazyyyy
♬ original sound – Vellvettt
Her video received 579,800 views. Viewers in the comments expressed their agreement with her view of the situation.
“Yupp and now she turned the comments off because the tables have turned,” said one person about Marissa’s original posts.
“This! That’s why people shouldn’t make judgements [sic] on situations without all info. No telling what was said and done before the video started,” said another.
“I knew exactly what it was within the few minutes. Like how you start recordin the moment he at the table takin the chair,” someone else wrote.
One person, making a joke about a viral video of a brawl involving a riverboat and a folding chair that took place in Montgomery, Alabama, in August 2023, said, “Don’t they know how we feel about our chairs. [And] it’s coming up on our 1yr anniversary of the ‘chair brawl.’”
The Daily Dot reached out to Vellvettt via TikTok direct message for further comment. The Dot was unable to reach Marissa for more information.
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