you know? luckily, mark s brother-in-law doesn t get in trouble, and steve is a success. something that s kind of funny and well produced can be hugely viral on the web. mark follows the first video with four more, including one posted in 2010, where steve gives up his lawn mower for a scissor lift. steve? come on down. come and get me. how about that. i ll tell you what, steve, we can do this the easy way or we can do it the hard way. i don t think the intent was to make a bunch of steve videos, as much as to find something that people would gravitate to, something that people would want to watch. you call 911? it doesn t matter if they think it s real or fake. it seems people want to watch steve. sir, pull that lift to the side of the road. stop, now. the last one i put up did a million views in 20 days, which is quicker than any of the other videos i ve put on there.
all sorts of absurd action is caught on camera these days. and this dash cam video certainly looks convincing, but is it real? you re not supposed to be riding a lawn mower on a highway. what are you doing? it s definitely not real. comedian mark ryan is steve, the lawn mower guy. my wife said if i didn t get her another beer she was going to stab me in the face. to me, it s more like bringing to life comedy i ve been doing for years in another format on stage. i grew up with a buddy named steve who was just loud and raising hell all the time. won t it be fun to hear him every once in a while? all right, here s what you re going do. in 2006, mark is doing stand-up, but wants to reach a larger audience. that s where steve comes in. it was a way to get attention, just in general, but it was also, you know, intended kind of as a commercial. to have him say, that was really funny. who is this guy?
maybe i ll come down, maybe i won t. maybe i ll come down. maybe i won t. so what s next for steve? i m just going to say it involves a helicopter. that s all i m going to say. we re going big. coming up, from the ridiculous to the just plain freaky. so i m going to sync them up to the monitor. then seeing 3-d without those pesky glasses. this gets weird very quickly. it s one of these ridiculous things that could just be true. could this be cutting-edge technology? or is it one giant rouse? i could even touch it. when we return, to caught on camera: viral videos, do you believe?
had people wondering, is it real or is it fake? i m going to stop a craftsman red lawn mower, white male. the action is caught on a police dash cam. what is this guy doing? you kind of go like, this can t be real. what s your name? steve. but then you re like, but it could be because this is clearly a police officer s dash cam. the guy gets out, dressed to the nines as a cop. it certainly has a lot of elements that lend it credibility. how long you been riding a lawn mower? about two weeks. my truck broke. two weeks? yeah. you got a license on you, steve? the situation quickly gets, well, uncomfortable. what are you doing? i got to pee. sir, step off the lawn mower. sir. hang on. step off the lawn mower. just give me a second. sir, you better step off that lawn mower. you re about to get sprayed. i m serious. i m serious. i got to go. i got to go. ahhh!
i want to learn more. i ve been drinking all day. hold on just a second. mark posted the steve video with this description. my buddy, steve, is a moron. i often tell his stories in my show. this is one of my favorites. through a friend on the force, i got one of steve s arrest videos. to randomly be able to grab a new fan through the internet is really exciting, because if the internet didn t exist, i would be old school like a politician, town to town, shaking hands, hey, here s who i am. i m funny. trust me. believe in me. but now, the internet does that. just because he wants to attract new fans doesn t mean he wants to make it easy for them to figure out who steve really is. i think it s kind of it s the modern day gag. it s the modern day, you know, crank call. i got to pee. sir, step off the lawn mower. sir. hang on. i was hoping that they would think it was real. that was my intent.