@alexspencer5157
My great grandfather, Joseph Marshall, was a human fly! He climbed a building under construction for a beer and ended up spending the night in jail. We keep a blown up copy of the newspaper headline on the wall of our bathroom. I’ve always wondered what would motivate him to do something so dangerous, and your work has provided me with an answer. You do great research! Your video on JC Leyendecker and Charles Beach had me tearing up; thank you for the care and kindness with which you handle history. It makes us people in the present feel less alone.
@ragdollren6969
That quote about "an addiction to life" makes me wonder if these types of behaviors were characteristic of people who'd be diagnosed with ADHD in the modern era - some people are just naturally, biochemically, chronically understimulated in a way we now understand is due to dopamine receptors and stuff
@mfuentes4961
Happy to see that human embodiments of chaos are a historically universal thing lol.😂
@Ashaasmith2
Mr “nutty” honestly sounds like something out of a day dream for me. “made a life doing what he always loved, then started a circus and taught his kids cool as shit tricks”
@swordfish1929
The really interesting thing about Safety Last is that the story actually plays into some of the social factors behind human flies. The film starts with Lloyd's character leaving his small town and fiancée to go make his fortune in the city. The film then skips to several months later when Harold is struggling to make enough money working in a department store while trying to keep up the appearance of wealth for his fiancée. He and his roommate decide to climb the building as an advertising stunt designed to impress the owner of the department store into giving him a better and more stable job so he could provide for his fiancée. The film is an interesting and funny look at the concerns of young men in the 1920s with the added thrill of climbing buildings.
@miguelnery8907
Now, I find interesting that the last Jackass movie, Jackass Forever, got it's first female member, Rachel Wolfson, and the two stunts that she did were to put her tongue on a taser and to let herself be stung by a non-lethal scorpion on the lips. Painful, of course, but far from being lethal. And the thought about, the more a found how, to me, on a sorta subconscious level, the ideia of a woman doing life threatening stunts was alien compared to it's male counterpart. Also, it's really rare to see women getting shot in the head in movies. They usually get shot in the torso, when the shot is supposed to be lethal. So women can being depicted die horrifically, but it can't be too graphic.
@PurbleDragon
I was obsessed with Evel Knievel when I was a kid and I'm really surprised I didn't break any bones trying to emulate him lol
@chelseawolfe5289
Thrill seeking adrenaline junkie what have you long time listener here. I first got hooked on extreme stuff as a kid, I grew up BMX racing. Through some unfortunate life experiences I came to feel that the only way I could experience love or anyone caring about me was either by accomplishing great things or by getting hurt trying. Eventually I learned to value my life and existence outside of what I could accomplish and what other people felt about me but by that point it was my entire life and I'm so hooked on the feeling of scaring myself, flirting with the edge of control in a chaotic universe only to bring it back for that rush of adrenaline, adrenaline that wouldn't be there if it weren't possible to fail spectacularly. Engaging that primal side of the mind through triggering my fight or flight is when I feel most alive. You get to a point where you can process so much so fast that it feels like you're slowing time down for an instant. Outside of it feeling good to accomplish things you once thought impossible it's the closest one can get to feeling like a super hero in real life. TL;DR: the feminine urge to climb tall thing
@tracychristenson177
I'm glad that you explained this! There's an old episode of Scooby-Doo (Nowhere to Hyde) that has someone who is described as having had a "human fly act", and I was never completely sure what that was. It matters to the episode because the "ghost of Hyde" scales buildings using suction cups, but since human flies didn't use equipment in their climbs, the person who was a human fly wouldn't have used suction cups, just their own strength. The episode makes more sense now!
@Trassel242
One of my favourite people from way back when is Harry Houdini, who was a badass and who was, as I’m sure most of you know, famous for his break-out stunts, where he’d be handcuffed or similar and then free himself. I remember reading about this one time where he was chained and dropped from a bridge into water, and survived it all. He spent his late career as a debunker of mediums and psychics, finding it horrible that people would basically rob grieving, desperate people out of their money, so he tried to reveal them as fakes.
@PlasticBuddha88
My great grandfather was a stock car driver in the 1920’s. He was a car mechanic and built his own race cars. He died in a crash during a Thanksgiving charity race in 1929 leaving behind a young widow and two daughters. He was 26. My grandmother (his oldest daughter) was 4.
@riverhere9483
I haven't done anything nearly so dangerous, but I do go bouldering (free climbing without a harness) out in the desert. The only thing keeping you on the rock are your hands and feet, and if you fall you could be seriously injured. For me I find testing the limits of your abilities and being so present in your body very gratifying. There's also the problem solving aspect, figuring out what route you want to take up the rock, whether that be the safest, most efficient, or most challenging route.
@Hamokk
Kaz is pampering us. 2 long videos in a month. ❤ My favorite history YouTuber.
@Fooma777
Speaking as a man, you’re right, I do want be monke and climb high thing! There might be banana, or breathtaking vista, either is lovely.
@perrydowd9285
Hey Kaz, Here's a really obscure fun fact: Burt Ward, who played Batman in the 1960's TV series was a human cannonball in the late 1980s. The guy at the pub guarantees it's a fact. It might even be true.
@willlee6095
Can I just say "Shout out to news archives!"? And incredible stuff as always Kaz! Love your explorations of gender and the victorian era.
@junebrilly5302
Im old now, but when young I rode racehorses. I was a workrider and in Ireland I rode in races over fences- Steeplechasing. I had alot of falls, broke my neck and back, but it was wild. The thrill of raceriding surpassed everything in my experience. Im old now- and a wreck- but have no regrets
@alextheasparagus6675
This reminded me of Franz Reichelt, the guy who tried to make a wearable parachute and jumped to his death from the Eiffel Tower in 1912. He was so sure he was going to make it, people tried talking him out of it, but he did it anyway. The whole thing was filmed and you can find it on youtube. It’s one of the most harrowing things I’ve ever watched. As for myself, I climb rocks. Rope and harness always, security is extremely important. For me, it’s the feeling of doing something that makes you feel like you’re going to die, but you know that you won’t, and when you make it to the top it feels like you’ve won at life. I’m only climbing at amateur levels, but it’s still a dangerous (but mostly safe) sport that gives you a rush of adrenaline and it’s extremely addictive. But I also love being outside in nature and I love coming up over the edge and seeing the view!
@LauraSomeNumber
This video reminded me of two things Emilie Sannom who was a Danish stunt woman and who died in 1931 because she had to use someone else's parachute for a jump from a plane and it failed. And a drunk guy who climbed a building but then couldn't get down and had to be rescued by helicopter.
@tygerinthenight3255