Attempting the Impossible: Hands Across America | Tales From the Bottle
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- Опубліковано 27 вер 2024
- Forming a human chain of people from coast to coast seems impossible - but it's been tried, so is it?
"Hands Across America was a public fundraising event on Sunday, May 25, 1986, when 5 to 6.5 million people held hands for 15 minutes in an attempt to form a continuous human chain across the contiguous United States. The attempt to have a complete line of people across the country failed, although the number of participants would have been sufficient to succeed if they had been spread out over the full length of the planned course. The various gaps in the line between participants were filled using ribbons, ropes, or banners.
Many participants donated $10 each to reserve their place in line. The proceeds were donated to local charities to fight hunger and homelessness and help those in poverty.
The event raised about $15 million for charities after operating costs."
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gort
Boop
This reminds me of that other video I saw. Hand j0bs across America.
Now, make a video about The Baltic Way, aka. Baltic Chain, aka. "Chain of Freedom"
Of the 60% that have left the United States, I wonder how many of those only visited Canada? There's a huge number of Americans in the northern us, and sometimes even come up on day trips to shop or check out nearby attractions.
The possibility of meeting a Frenchman has prevented my leaving the United States all of my life. 🤣
I'm in france right now and I'll tell ya, you're right
@@jacksonledford6874 as a Brit I approve this message
i'm coming for you Amber, VOUS RENCONTREREZ UN FRANÇAIS!!!
@@l.t.cgaming2157 😂
Don't tell him but they're already here
The sheer idea of someone touching an electric fence and shocking upwards of 6 million people is so funny I'm surprised no one thought of doing it back then
I don't think the electricity would travel that far
@@b-chroniumproductions3177 well heres the thing right, electricity is looking for the path of least resistance to ground. so in all honesty it would have shocked like 6 people max in the chain. would have been funny, but not 6 million people shocked funny.
Ohms law says that current would dissipate so quickly
@@crimsonlion100 Imagine a lightning strike then?
@Cadde now you're thinking!
“Think of what we can do with our own hands” said by Bill Cosby. I’m sorry, but that’s one of the funniest things I’ve heard in a while.
we can put little pill in the pudding
@@DrDeuteron pudding pops!
I love oxy in my pudding
@@HPsawus hand out a drink maybe?
Hands Inside America.... cue Stinkfist by Tool
The happy smile on the hippie-van driver's face, only to be replaced with an angry death stare at the Frenchman, was absolutely hilarious and accurate.
I laughed so hard at the hippie in the van. I had to watch 4 times. Hilarious.
@@SocialistDistancing Timestamp?
LOL!! His illustrations are the best.
The chain will never happen again, cause Soros and the Leftist-Mutants are a plague on our world and want to destroy it.
@@spinyslasher6586tfw literally did not watch even 30 seconds of the video
I'm one of those "never out of the country" Americans, who participated in Hands Across America when I was 15. I met a Frenchman at the local grocery store last month - he taught my grandson "Bon Jour" ♥
I once heard a lady speaking with a French accent, and I asked her how to properly prounce my surname, "Midyett", and she said she'd never heard the name before.
@@SuperTonyonythat's because American surnames ar mostly bullshit lmao
I’m so sorry you had to go through that
@@SuperTonyony It's an Old English personal name; "Middi". You add the ett" to the end to make it "little" or "son of" to get "Son of Middi", could be a persons name or a way of referring to how your ancestors were likely located toward the middle of the settlement/village they lived in.
My step father took part in this event. A 5'11" 260lbs biker, affiliated with the Hells Angels. He had forearms like fire hydrants. He and a few buddies showed up, got drunk and stuck it out. This was in the Arizona section.
Edit, upon further review, one of the thick blonde girls in the photo with the cactus, is highly likely to be my stepdads sister Kelly. I'll need some convincing to believe otherwise. I know she took part, just like her biker brother, and that photo looks identical to the one in her albums.
time stamp?
@@LagrangePoint0 4:33 is the only photo i remember seeing with a cactus
@@ZStrikeYT Lmao, before asking you I imagined that's the one you were talking about. Not gonna lie, when I saw that part I didn't even noticed the cactus, all I could think is how THICC and HAWT that girl was.
The odds of you coming across a single picture out of 6 million people and you know that person is virtually impossible. The amount of pictures taken probably reached the millions for sure all across the country. The fact that single photo woild make it into thos video is not happening. Hopefully logical math is convincing enough for you.
Also idk why you felt the need to hype of your step dad in these comments. What does his supposed affiliation with a biker gang and the size of his forearms have to do with anything? I mean I know you're trying to say he was a tough guy who did hands across America but he also got drunk and treated it like a hangout basically. Just because someone participated in hands across America dosent mean they were a decent person. They had bill Cosby as their spokesman....
@@j2398 Yep, 100% BS
I do think the idea that we set everything down, ignored race, gender, social status, etc and identified every kind of person as an American really means a lot. The fact prisoners were able to participate is honestly what I think is important. Even those who we condemn and see as dangerous enough to be locked away, they got to be a part of it.
But it's important that true americans are people who learn the language, culture and actually participate american life rather than try to force america to be the country they clearly didn't like enough to want to leave it. And people who try to force their previous culture into america, refuse to learn the language and don't give back to the communities aren't actually american, they're leeches.
I’m sensing you’re thinking of organizing a Hands Across America 2.0?
@@ryanhilliard1620 I can’t organize a meeting with a single friend
Definitely not gonna be organizing a country wide hunk
@@congruentcrib I felt that.
@JimMilton-ej6zi land of the free unless you use your freedom to practice your home country’s culture. Unless it’s a white European culture, then it’s a badge of honor to say you’re that
4:40 "God made the desert for scorpions and rattlesnakes to fight to the death under the boiling sun."
Between lines like that, humor like that Frenchman joke and learning something new or getting more insight into ridiculous stories I had heard about is the reason why I look forward to your videos every Friday good sir.
Athefumen...Same here
Perhaps in the future, Qxir could cover Baltic Way, when approximately 2 million people held hands from Vilnius to Tallinn, and ultimately led to Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia being freed from Soviet occupation. Another great hand holding story, and one with rather immediate effects.
Qxir, you are one of the very few folks I can listen to as they talk about obscure facts, erroneous topics, and horrific deaths for hours at a time. Thanks for all your hard work but don't work yourself too hard
Is Wendigoon one of the others?
If not you should definitely make him one.
@@rjtimmerman2861 ooh, yea he definitely is
Oversimplified gotta be one
@KonLuvsShrek yeah sorta, but he doesn't really go into those details so I wouldn't count him on this list
My grandma was one of the coordinators for a section along I-17 in Arizona, and my mom always talks about the event, so I've always assumed this was one of, if not THE defining event of American history in the 80s.
Im curious how they picked their position in the line....there are miles and miles of empty road that chain must have been on. did people just drive out of their city until they reached the end of the line, park and hold the persons hand?
did everyone know ahead of time which mile marker they would drive to? It must've been a tailgate party for miles (and hours) along the freeways.
@@diox8tony My guess would be that each coordinator would become familiar with their spot ahead of time, and then on the day of the event people would follow them and set up camp along the road. From there they would spread out in both directions until they found the other groups near by.
I was never told about the logistics of the event, but that would be my guess based on various details I've heard, as well as the fact that (the vast majority of) people didn't have GPS back then.
There were coordinators? It was very disorganized where we were. After several hours, the moms just started a countdown and we all held hands for a few minutes, took pictures and went home.
What actually happened was…I showed up with a bunch of cousins and my mom and aunts and we stood there waiting for a couple hours. After a while, it was clear there was no organization and no direction was going to be given. The kids were getting restless and hungry and finally the moms conspired and started a countdown and then we all joined hands for a few minutes, pictures were taken, we all felt good about SOMETHING and we went home. That was Hands Across America.🇺🇸
Oddly enough, I AM an Irishman who moved to the desert for some reason... and yes, while feeling the sweat of a strangers hand in normal conditions is revolting to me, doing it in the Phoenix summer heat is my own personal idea of hell.
Show Low is nice, but there's a high chance of hillbilly 🤪
I also live in Phoenix, its truly hell on earth
@@ZERO_42069 From May to September, it's certainly the same temp as the 9th circle.
Wow!! Hello mr. Irishman!!
Phoenix is a wild place, is it not?
Bill Cosby saying “think of what we can do with our own hands” is _hands_ down the best part of this video
Next they should do *'Human Centipede Across America'*
love getting a new video every friday. hearing your sultry Irish voice reminds me that the weekends coming up and life is good.
My parents had me part of this chain, memories!
Well the rest of who unfortunately didnt participate now knows what happened! 😀
I guess the 80s were just the decade of hand holding - the Baltics did the same thing in '89. This probably inspired us to do so
In the Soviet Union there was a similar event at that time, the Baltic Way. And THAT is the event that fueled divisiveness, for real. 😮
I just seen the Wikipedia entry of the event and in there, there is a poster that portrays the German mustache guy and the Soviet mustache guy as lovers getting married like in a BL manga lmao
@Black Roberts I'd ship it.
Well, I loved Hands Across America! I was a child at the time….not even living in the United States, but I loved the idea that people tried to show love and unity across the entire country! I didn’t even know it was to raise funds….I just thought it was a sweet idea!
I'm an American & this was hilarious! Thank you for the work you put into your videos. You truly are one of the top creators on UA-cam- which is my opinion which really means diddly in the grand scheme of things. 😁
Cosby "think what we can do with our hands"
I'd rather not think what you do with your hands Bill
80's to now, what's changed? Humanity as a whole has been spiritually devolving. This will continue until their is a reset.
I was a petulant teenager when this happened. The line ran not far from my home but it was such a hot day that I refused to go. My mother and step-father went. She thought it had been great, standing in line and imagining you were in an unbroken chain across the country. Meanwhile he rolled his eyes and let me know he'd rather have stayed home too.
In my opinion, America is simply too big a place for such an event to be meaningful.
They should have hands across Lichtenstein, San Marino, or Singapore. This kind of event could feel really unifying in a small nation, I imagine.
Well too bad, america did it!!!! Now imagine what else more we could do!!!!
One thing I always run into with visitors from western Europe is a lack of understanding of just how big America actually is (both US & Canada), both in land-size and population. For example, my parents hosted an exchange student -- they're in Ohio -- and the student just could not understand that no, we couldn't pop down to Disney World or over to Cali whenever we wanted, New Orleans wasn't a day trip, and Washington DC was not just around the corner.
Not traveling outside our borders isn't just because "the US has everything" -- no, it's because it's freakin' expensive for us to do so AND takes a ton of time. We don't have country-wide public transport, and public transport inside various cities can be a crapshoot. I mean, I'd love to have a system like Eurail here. Travel by car is *exhausting*; Amtrak trains and Greyhound buses are not only expensive, but also don't cover many places; planes are even more expensive. When I visited Europe in the '80s, it was amazing how many countries and cities I was able to easily/cheaply visit via Eurail pass. In contrast, here, I've managed to get to San Francisco once (14+ hour trip by plane, several days by car), Delaware a couple times (due to in-laws living there; an exhausting 10+ hour car trip), Tennesee's Smoky Mountains a number of times (6-ish hours from here by car, so fairly close), and Denver/the Rockies once (three days of continuous driving by my parents -- pure hell). That's it.
And bluntly, it's either car or nothing in most of this country, if you want to visit anywhere outside your home city.
It took me five days to move from North Carolina to California by car, and that was with stops along the way.
Thank you for all you do man. Your channel is amazing.
Congratulations, Africa really needed the world's highest birth rates. This helped so much.
I was in grade school when it got started. It was made out to be a big deal at school, but after the actual day it occurred it seemed like it kind of just dissappeared and no one said anything about it ever again. I can't recall having heard anything more about it until that Simpsons episode years later mentioned it.
Talk to the "hand"
I only know about it because of the Simpsons episode.... But I'm Australian so it didn't really involve me at all.
There was a continuous link between New York and Washington-the first "break" occurring in western Maryland.
After that, there were quite a few "breaks"-but it was *mostly* continuous through Chicago, St. Louis, and Kansas City.
West of there, the "breaks" outnumbered the continuity except for in southern California-where it was *mostly* continuous.
Between California and western Texas, however, practically nobody actually showed up.
Instead, they arranged
-via CB radio-for long-haul truck drivers to simultaneously *honk their horns* at the appointed time.
I'm just happy you covered this event. I was in Atlanta when it happened so I didn't take part in it but it really was a nice idea.
Yes it was... we should do one for Ukraine
Finally subscribed after watching hundreds of your videos.
Not sure if you’re interested in anything Ukraine related but I’ve been volunteering here for a year. Let me know if you want anything.
Bro, you can surf at the beach, hike through a forest, trek across a desert, climb a mountain, and make a snow angel in one day all just in California.
Yeah, and you can s*** in the street after you shoot up in your tent on the sidewalk!
Yeah, if you want to die of hypothermia.
I live within 45 min of desert, the beach, snowy mountains, a massive city, forests, Disneyland, and have been outside the country. When you've been born and raised in SoCal, it just is what it is. There are so many countries I wish I could visit. Ireland being among the top of the list.
Your point about being able to visit vast variety of biomes within the country is made a crazier thought experiment when you realize you can see most within a single state, such as here in Washington. Here you can find deserts, open plains, river basins, rolling agrarian hills, arid mountain steppes, alpine forests, temperate rain forests, glacial peaks, marshes, an archipelago, and probably more that I can't remember off the top of my head.
I first learned about this from my high school debate coach - who had been present helping facilitate the 1986 National Catholic Forensic League national tournament, in Baltimore, on the exact same day. At the time they spread out the events across multiple sites and it turns out several of these sites were on opposite sides of the human chain. It was apparently quite a boondoggle with facilitators having to take circuitous detours to move the judging results around, which all had to be done by paper in 1986.
"...and that drastically reduces their chances of ever meeting a frenchman."
Me who's an american who has met people from Canada, Mexico, El Salvador, Jamaica, Ghana, Spain, England, Ireland, Germany, Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Moldova, Romania, Slovakia, China, Hong Kong, Australia, India, Poland, Vietnam and Indonesia all without leaving the country B)
Ah, those days before COVID and social distancing. Great video, man!
It's always amazing. An European will ask me where they should travel to in America wanting to explore it all in one week. Yet America is only slightly smaller than all of Europe. So they say they will drive from New York, Chicago, Denver, etc all in a week. When in reality they will never get out of their car the whole vacation if they want to travel that much.
I'm holding hands with your videos
Hands across America wasn't happening when we drove up interstate 17 going north in Arizona. Everyone was down in the ditch waiting, or getting in the way of traffic. We did see some bikini clad girls and that slowed us down even more. Hauling cattle through the desert is tough enough without a bunch of people being in the way. But we made it with no cow casualties. Hauling a live load, well,, you've got to go, and keep going. You don't want to have to stop til you get there, but for food, fuel, scale houses( chicken houses )and the occasional breakdowns. There were tents everywhere and a great mix of peoples that was great to see people of all races participating! Thanks again Qxir! Had not thought about that for quite some time. What a memory. Wish we could have pulled over and joined in. Wonder how many people got shite on as we went by? Peace to all in Ireland from Dan from Nebraska. 😂🇺🇸😅!
I was 10 years old, growing up in Simi Valley, CA; however, my Aunt and Uncle lived in Grand Terrace, CA, which the 'Hands Across America' route cut right through. So my family and I got to be a part of this event. All the people along the road we were on, at least as far as I could see, were having fun with it. By running forward and backward, they were turning the whole line into a wave. Great memories, so glad I could be a part of it.
BTW: Regarding the controversy over President Reagan’s involvement; I think a majority of Americans would tolerate 10 successive Reagan Administrations*, over suffering through just the remaining year & a half of the Biden Administration.
*a hypothetical which assumes his cognitive abilities remained the same and as sharp as they were during his Presidency. (So, no mean or disparaging replies about his later symptoms and diagnosis of Alzheimers disease.)
Reagan was more lucid when he told the world he had Alzheimer’s!
@Attmay:😆😂🤣
I remember this as a kid. Man, that makes me feel old..
In some states, you can go to all those places without leaving your own state
aka Texas, California, Arizona
The 80’s: a time of unbridled enthusiasm about issues that were not concerning in the slightest, and the utter neglect of issues that were.
My post-covid brain is having an aneurysm thinking about all those strangers holding hands
Hands across America is peak eighties, a perfect microcosm of the time
I vaguely remember The Simpsons mentioning this... with large gaps in parts.
Yep!
Love the way the British charity song was "Feed the world" and the American one was "We are the world" lol.
@trumpisthemessiah7017we kinda left the entire empire phase around the 50s
Also I never had seen or heard anything like that happen
@Trump Is The Messiah I guess you're right. I'm getting strong 'I'm better than you' vibes.
0:05 was that map drawn befor florida was circumcised?
I haven't thought of Hands Across America in forever, and now that I watched this video I will forget about it once again.
This event is also featured in the movie "Us" from 2019.
"if you count the gaps filled with nothing" cracked me up 😂
My uncle participated in this. He thought he’d be in some scenic area, but he was in some awful, dusty area in the middle of nowhere. He was probably high the whole time anyway.
I was there that day- out in the desert outside of Tonopah AZ- it was HOT, but we had fun. Stayed up all night before we went, very drunk, and there where car problems on the way home... I may still have the T-shirt somewhere
The event was also the inspiration for the movie Us back in 2019, it’s a decent film too.
When ever I see a new video I know it will be great, A fan.
If this isn't a wholesome moment in world history, I don't know what is.
It can still happen today. : )
"Peace is nice. Peace is nice."
Around 2:20 there's a white LTD station wagon parked on the grass. I owned one, wonderful car, goddamn I miss that car.
Very cool! What was it like to drive?
The fact that this video is the highlight of my Friday either shows how high I regard your material or exposes how much my life is in shambles. Still, good stuff.
Never change. I love you, Qxir
And nothing bad has ever happened in Africa since...
*I WAS THERE!!!* In one of the desert chains outside Phoenix!
How was the line completed only 15 MINUTES after it was started?
It's depressing to think that we went from that to where we are now.
Did you ever get the million dollar investment in the channel?
No, He got 10 million
@@volvo09 I hope that will be his next talk.
Just moved into my first apartment with my fiancee and Qxir is the first video I watched here. You're part of the family now.
Qxir, love the videos. Constantly coming back to rewatch, it makes me happy to see a new upload. Especially on a topic like this :D
There's always Paris, Texas if they want to meet someone fro Paris... :D
Or for Frenchmen - there's Canada!
And a mini Eiffel Tower in Vegas
No need to go to Canada for French. Parts of the rural Louisiana swamps still have groups of native French speakers, called the Acadians
Thank you for sharing the full detail and GREED in the human mind that got involved in all this. Enough with the cosby crap people, ate you fully understanding the deeper meaning behind that event?
I was only 4 yet can remember All this. Thank you for sharing ❤
The “Cosby crap“ is relevant because Coca-Cola sponsored this event and he was a spokesman for it at the time.
I bet Ireland could double that across the country. Especially if everyone shared a pint. Though there might be a few scuffles mixed in here and there.
I remember doing hands across America back when I was 9 years old. It was hyped up is this big thing and afterwards I remember thinking "was that it?". When it was over we just went home and watched some new shows that covered it on TV.
Well here it is again decades later.
Can we do it again?!?!
this concept is violently American, thank you for making a video about it so I could learn more
2:07 🙄 Yes BILL, we clearly understand what you can do with your hands! 😡 Now quit bragging about it, or we might have to do something about it........... Many, many years from now ....... 🤨 ...... And then let you off the hook,, 🤦🏼♂️ shortly after that.
God egging on the scorpion snake fight was the best part.
good channel
I spend a fair amount of time in conversation with locals when I was in Ireland trying to explain how it was possible that I lived full time in a desert--and neither in a cave, nor as an itinerant goat-herding Bedouin on camel back. Lots of the Irish folks just couldn't get a handle on the fact that not all deserts look like the featureless sand dunes of the Sahara, and that we even have trees and grass and flowers out here. Not so much as in Ireland, but even outside the built up and irrigated cities, most of the Great American Western Desert has vegetation that survives on the natural precipitation, and many of the mountains are covered in full on pine forests as thick as anything in the Pacific Northwest. It is hot as balls in the summer, admittedly. But it's a DRY heat...
QXIR is one of the best YT channels active today and I sort of hate my life.
While our hearts are frequently in the right place, we Americans don't like being told what to do. So getting us all to do something the right way, at the same time is a bridge too far.
Impressive organisation for pre-internet days.
Make a video about the baltic way another massive human chain and it has an interesting history behind it
4:56, thats giving me nouty ideas
Honestly it wouldn’t surprise me if not even 40% of Americans have been out of the country. I mean maybe just crossing into Mexico or Canada but seriously this country is massive.
I like how the line just goes around the South
I stand with hawaii. 2,000 miles worth of divers holding hands in the ocean is a logistical nightmare i want to see happen!
Maryland gets it!
Chances of meeting a Frenchman. HAHAHAHAHAHA!
Babe... wake up. New tales from the bottle
"God made the desert for scorpions and rattlesnakes to fight to the death under the boiling sun."
As an Arizonan, I can confirm this fact.
Anyone know what the last one says at 3:33? I think maybe it says "racial tensions"?
Yes correct
Just a few chaotic nerds with Van De Graaff generators would have made this event a MILLION times more hilarious.
Americans crack me up, they crack me up more when Qxir puts his rhetoric to them.
Cheers for all the content, some of my favourite 😅
0:28 *laughs in French-Canadian* (jk we hate post-revolution France too)
I went to NYC before and guess what I ran into a Frenchman. Your chance of running into Frenchman is disturbingly high in the modern world
I was expecting it to end up with a large number of people getting run over trying to bridge the gap on a large highway
Yes! Hands across Idaho! Who's coming?
All this wothout Social Media. It really was miraculous.
Video starts at 0:00 thank me later
Beautiful things like this really can really wheedle out the true beauty and shortcomings of nations 😬👍
The things you listed at 0:20 could be visited not just in the US but in California by itself! Along with rainforests, the world's tallest, most massive and oldest types of trees, one of the most valuable and productive agriculture industries in the world, Hollywood, silicon valley, san fransico and san Diego. The US as a whole is diverse, both in terms of geography and people, but California is on a whole different level.
I live in Argentina and it's an even more amazingly diverse country, I love our geography!