A FAMILIAR MEME. A NEW CONTEXT.
“Bad Day” is a short clip in which a furious man smashes a computer monitor and keyboard. For a long time the video was taken for genuine surveillance-camera footage, although it is in fact a staged promotional piece for a maker of video surveillance systems, shot in 1996.
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In grainy black-and-white footage resembling an office security-camera archive, a man in a light shirt punches a large monitor on a desk several times, then finally sends the equipment crashing to the floor along with the keyboard. Viewed from the outside, the scene looks like a spontaneous fit of rage by an ordinary office worker who has had enough of yet another computer glitch.
It was precisely this authenticity (the grainy film, the ceiling-camera angle, the absence of staged elements) that led millions of viewers for years to believe the clip was a real recording of an incident in someone’s office.
The man in the frame is Vinny Licciardi. At the time of filming he was a shipping manager at Loronix Information Systems, a company based in Durango, Colorado, that developed digital video surveillance systems.
Licciardi appeared in several staged clips made by the company to demonstrate its equipment, including scenarios that looked like incidents accidentally caught on camera.
The clip was recorded in 1996 and originally distributed on a Loronix promotional CD as demonstration material for its video surveillance systems. Despite its apparent documentary feel, the scene was scripted in advance rather than accidentally captured by a working camera.
The true origin of the footage became known to the general public only in 1998, when CNN reported on it, and shortly afterward the trade publication Security Distribution Magazine did too. Until then most viewers were convinced they were seeing a real outburst of anger by an actual office worker.
The clip began spreading online as early as 1997, mainly by email. Its small file size made it easy to forward at a time when home internet still ran over slow dial-up modem connections. This ease of distribution and its early appearance (one of the very first cases of mass internet viral content) earned the video a reputation as arguably the first truly viral video in the history of the web.
Loronix itself learned how far its promotional material had spread only in June 1998. A sudden surge of traffic and requests related to the clip temporarily caused problems for the company’s internal computer systems.
After the staged nature of the video was revealed, interest in it did not fade. On the contrary, the clip became a visual symbol of computer rage in general and began appearing in TV promos, advertising campaigns and numerous parodies, including remakes in the style of popular internet characters.
Today “Bad Day” continues to be used as a universal illustration of irritation with uncooperative technology, even by users who no longer know the footage was staged. The frame is often captioned with lines like “When the computer freezes for the fifth time today” or “Me, getting an email from my boss on Friday evening.” Both play on the recognizable fury at technology that refuses to work.
Curiously, Loronix, which made the clip purely as demo material to sell video surveillance equipment, later became far less known to the general public than its accidental by-product. The short scene with the smashed monitor outlived both the company and the original purpose for which it was made.
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