There’s science to back this kind of thing up, we promise!
Dabbin’
You simply can’t make up Florida, as evidenced by a viral video of a bona fide Florida Man taking a bong rip as Hurricane Ian wreaks havoc behind him.
In the video, an unidentified bearded man stands outside as the wind gushes through the palm trees behind him — and at one point, even blows some debris against his head. The man does so while taking a huge inhale of “dabs,” the concentrated, waxy butane hash oil that often makes partakers cough violently.
In the background, “Rock You Like a Hurricane” by the one-hit wonder hair metal band Scorpions can be heard playing, though it’s not nearly as loud as the audible and visible gusts of wind blowing almost-horizontally past the ur-Florida Man, who seems bemused but unperturbed by the fierce act of nature in which he’s dabbing.
Party All the Time
As insane as the man may seem to outsiders, anyone who’s lived in Florida knows of the bizarre, commonplace urge to “hurricane party” when these kinds of storms hit.
So prevalent is the hurricane party phenomenon that CNBC reached out to a sort-of psychologist to explain why people would rather stay in harm’s way and throw parties than evacuate.
According to Robert Meyer, a University of Pennsylvania marketing professor and co-director of the Wharton Risk Management and Decision Processes Center who spoke with CNBC, people engage in a sort of “herding” effect when they see others calmly handling an emergency situation — even if those people don’t “know any more than you do.”
“We are prone to an optimism bias,” Meyer added, “in that [we believe] bad things are going to happen to other people and not to ourselves in particular.”
As climate degradation continues its deadly march forward, megastorms like Hurricane Ian are going to become all the more commonplace — so really, why shouldn’t we dab on ’em?
More hurricane madness: Scientists Sent a Robot Into the Ferocious Hurricane Fiona