Man Is Confronted By A Little Boy And His Dad For Hunting A Deer — ‘What Did That Deer Do To You?’
All of this could have been avoided if everyone went about their day.
@absolutegeniux / TikTok While driving down a friendly neighborhood after a long day of hunting, a man was stopped by a father and his son who had some choice words to share with the man who took a moment to stop and listen, but not before taking his phone out to record the interaction.
The video was uploaded to TikTok where it received over 7.4 million views and left people shocked by the odd interaction, even sparking a debate over who was in the wrong.
The father and son confronted him about why he hunts for deer.
Likely spurred on by something we can’t see — maybe a deer corpse, a bumper sticker, watching him hunt earlier, or maybe they just know him — the father and son duo approach the man driving the car who was previously minding his own business.
“I want to know why you want to kill deer, tell me,” the father said, sporting a yellow tee-shirt and a baseball cap. “Because I eat them,” the man in the car responds. He repeats his answer once more after the father asked for clarification and spurred on the man’s son, who was armed with a hockey stick and a blue New York Islanders hoodie.
“What did the f--king deer do to you?” he asked, looking far too young to speak so vulgarly but also speaking with so much passion for the harmless animals.
The hunter clarifies that he’s recording before continuing with his explanation, asking the young boy if they buy meat from the supermarket. Naturally, the boy and his son reply that they do because unless they were vegetarian or hunting their own food, there would be nowhere else to get meat.
The hunter then explains that if anything, he’s doing the deer a service because the meat they purchase from the supermarket comes from animals that are killed in “dirty areas” and in poor living conditions.
The Animal Welfare Institute claims that the animal farming industry is currently dominated by facilities that treat these animals inhumanely, and so this hunter is arguing that he holds onto a higher moral ground thanks to the way he goes about acquiring his food.
The dad’s daughter starts crying and rides away on her scooter.
“You’re like a hero on Long Island right now,” the dad says before his daughter starts crying, “because kids are upset. They’re crying because you want to kill deer.” The hunter apologizes for the fact that kids are crying, but he claims that it’s the dad’s job to explain to his kids that it’s a part of life.
The same son asks the hunter if he has a pet around the same time that his sister decided she’d heard enough and rode off crying. “How would you like to see your pet dead?” the kid asks. “A deer as a pet?” the man responds.
Photo: TikTok / @absolutegeniux
It seems like the biggest trouble that they have with the hunter being in their area is that he’s doing the hunting and killing in their neighborhood. They repeatedly ask him to go somewhere else so that they don’t have to see it, but it seems like neither side is willing to back down in the argument.
The hunter claims that the police are on their way and cuts the video short there, allowing thousands of people in the comments room to share their own opinions.
“I love this kid and his dad for standing behind him,” one commenter wrote, defending the young boy and his father for standing up to the hunter. “Free range is better than a factory farm no?” someone else commented, arguing the same point the hunter made.
All in all, it’s possible to see both sides, but as one commenter put it, “You can avoid random confrontations if you don't talk to strangers.” If everyone minded their own business, none of them would be in this predicament.
Isaac Serna-Diez is an Assistant Editor for YourTango who focuses on entertainment and news, social justice, and politics.