An interview on last Friday’s episode of The Project has recirculated online after viewers noticed a young boy appearing to eat not one, but two flies in front of the camera.
But some have questioned whether he ate the flies at all, suggesting the camera and unfortunate video compression conspired against the kid.
Speaking to the panel after the first rainfall on their Narromine property since 2016, farmers Richard and Janie Tink expressed their gratitude for a break in the region’s brutal drought.
“I think it just gives us a little bit more spirit,” Janie said.
“Just knowing that we have had some really tough times, and here’s hoping that 2020 might be our actual year that we get to sow a crop and at the end, strip it in November.”
At the same time, a fly appeared to land on her son’s cheek. In full view of the camera, the boy stretched his tongue downward to reach it, before bringing it back into his mouth.
A fly appeared in the exact same spot a moment later, provoking an identical reaction from the boy. He returned to smiling for the camera.
A rip of the footage has been viewed on Twitter thousands of times since Monday, causing significant concern among folks who don’t consider flies tiny, airborne delicacies.
Kid eats two flies on live TV. 😳 pic.twitter.com/PRfAizwxSO
— Eric Weiss 🤘💀 (@ZombieRiot) February 9, 2020
The footage also appeared on Reddit, where users commented on the decidedly unusual turn of events.
While some users made light of the situation, calling flies “sky raisins” and “free protein”, others have disputed whether he ate the flies at all.
“Nah, it’s the same fly and he’s shooing it away with his tongue because he doesn’t want to bring attention to himself,” user /u/SixAgain wrote.
“The flies aren’t that slow here in Australia, especially in what looks to be such a hot place. They are however very persistent.”
“The overall compression is simply too strong to show a small dot travel at really rapid speeds so [the fly is] only visible while it stays still,” added /u/Armanlex.
“I bet the kid touched the fly and it flew away both times.
“And the kids [sic] tongue isn’t covered with glue or anything.
“Does really anyone think it’s that easy to sneak up to a god damn fly that you can slow push it in your mouth with your tongue? Come on.”
As someone who considers flies his mortal enemy, I am skeptical of anyone’s ability to snap at them like a frog. It does look that way in the clip, but I tend to believe this was just a very unfortunate trick of the camera, which just so happened to find an audience on national telly.
Still, you can see it for yourself from the 24:45 minute mark here.
