Pro-ICE troll gets punched at school. The kid who did it is now a meme legend

A brief hallway confrontation at an Illinois high school turned into a meme after the video went viral, though not for the reason the teenage "content creator" wanted. 

What happened at Lake Zurich High School

On Thursday, Danny Spud posted a 47-second video filmed on his Ray-Ban Meta smartglasses. In the clip, he walked through the front entrance of Lake Zurich High School holding a sign that read "I LOVE ICE." Meanwhile, other students participated in an organized anti-ICE walkout of the school.

"Today, students at my high school in Chicago held an Anti-ICE protest," Spud wrote in the caption of his post. As he moved through the hallway, he said aloud, "We support ICE and law enforcement. I support ICE."

One passing student reacted with disbelief, saying, "That’s crazy, bro." Spud pushed back, replying, "I don’t know what’s crazy about this." Shortly after, another student in a brown hoodie confronted him directly. "Yeah. I’m going to punch you in the face," the student said.

"You’re going to punch me?" Spud asked. When the student answered, "Yes," Spud responded, "Then you’re going to get in trouble for that." The student replied simply, "Okay," and then punched him as he warned he would.

A security guard standing nearby stepped in immediately. While staff separated the students, Spud continued speaking to the camera. "I stand for my beliefs," he said. "I’m going to peacefully stand here and support my beliefs. I support ICE and law enforcement."

The other student yelled back, "You can go peacefully f*ck yourself!" Spud responded in what many online described as a weak protest, "That’s against school code. No swearing in the school." After all, the brown hoodie kid had just punched him. A little swearing is nothing in comparison to a physical fight.

How the Danny Spud punch became a meme

Reposts of the video spread with a variety of opinions, but it was through people sharing the video that brown hoodie guy was turned into a meme.

On Reddit, u/Chare1155 joked, "If I witnessed this baller move when I was in high school, I 100% would have asked him to a dance lol."

Still, others criticized both sides. u/hypersnaildeluxe wrote that the Meta glasses signaled bad faith, adding that Spud "was absolutely fishing for the staff to yell at him so he could pull the right wing grifter card and say waaah I’m being oppressed by the school admin." 

This is typical trolling behavior from Danny Spud, whose entire shtick is sharing "prank" videos of himself harassing strangers.

Likewise, u/LimonNerd argued, "I'm all about freedom of speech but sign kid gives me Charlie Kirk vibes. It's obvious sign kid was filming to capture reactions that would make for good viral content."

u/Professional_Big_731 pointed out, "'You can peacefully go f*ck yourself' great comeback 5 stars."

As the discourse spread, a single freeze-frame took off. The image showed the student mid-swing, leaning back with a sharp expression.

People compared the pose to Zoolander modeling and even Pepe the Frog. @FranziaMom called it "a cinematic masterpiece," while @DeepDishEnjoyer simply wrote, "life imitates art."

Spud took to X.com to complain about being banned from Instagram, writing, "After thousands of death threats and people celebrating me getting punched for holding a sign supporting ICE, I was just banned from @Instagram. Another attempt to silence me."

A community note below the post fact-checks his assertion, reading: "Danny was suspended after sharing videos in which he pulled fire alarms inside public businesses, an act that violated Instagram’s community guidelines."

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