This weekend just gone, some New Yorkers became (understandably) mildly perplexed by the following:
https://twitter.com/salinat/status/1048798418385162240
View from my apartment shows helicopters 🚁 circling the Empire State Building. Should I be worried? if not, this noise is driving me bananas. pic.twitter.com/TQ9rbnEC9C
— Daphna Goldschmidt (@Daphss) October 7, 2018
.@EmpireStateBldg What’s going on with the crazy lights and the choppers? 🚁 People on the street are stopping to watch #empirestatebuilding pic.twitter.com/CEVnnQw7UM
— Bianca Pasternack (@biancaparsnip) October 7, 2018
Wtf is going on with the @EmpireStateBldg lights tonight? Their website says it’s supposed to be signature white, yet the lights are going crazy and flashing & waving all these crazy colors. Never seen this before! Did the Empire State Building get hacked?!?! pic.twitter.com/hPMzFOvhpz
— SAMANTHA SCARLETTE (@SammiScarlette) October 6, 2018
While it looked, admittedly, dope as hell, it was also a bit confusing, given that the website for the Empire State Building said that, on that night, all that would happen was a change of the lights to blue and orange in support of NHL team the New York Islanders. Between the flashing, crazy-ass lights and the helicopters, it obviously somewhat exceeded that brief.
Lots of theories were put forward as to what could have been the cause: Hackers. Aliens. Eminem. From the work of some incredibly busy internet sleuths, it seems almost certain that that last one is correct, and that the technicolour antics of the landmark building were all for the sake of a music video.
Fan account Debating Eminem posted a screenshot of a now-deleted post to Instagram from director James Larese, who has worked with Eminem before:
https://twitter.com/DebatingEminem/status/1049194946756894720
While this doesn’t conclusively link it to Eminem, there were a few other tidbits:
Only hint from someone from Eminem’s Team being in NYC is from his Stylist.
Photo: Angela McBride pic.twitter.com/O97IxlerHK— Eminem & Shady News (@ShadyFansite) October 7, 2018
Art director Josh Namdar also posted to Instagram about the event, attributing the lights to Eminem, but later clarified that he wasn’t affiliated with the music video, he just asked a doorman what was going on.
[jwplayer gvkTjsCy]
