Bulk Email

On Monday, a 21-year-old student named Andrew Meyer stepped up to the microphone at a University of Florida event with John Kerry. The undergrad wanted to ask a question, or make a point, or hawk a book. Maybe he just wanted to heckle the one-time presidential candidate. What happened instead catapulted the senior to the top of Buzz.

Andrew got a little heated in his quizzing of the senator. The police officers at the event got a little heated listening. They interfered. He resisted. Andrew got Tasered.

Within hours, video of the incident was racing across the Web and searches were proliferating at record speed. Buzz for “john kerry” (+1,280%), “taser” (+533%), and “university of florida” (+108%) hurtled upwards. Interest in Andrew propelled his name into our top movers of the day.

Related queries like “andrew meyer tasered,” “florida student tasered,” and “john kerry taser” leapt. Demand for “andrew meyer video” and “taser student video” recorded huge gains. Even Greg Palast, the author of the book toted by the student, saw a rise in queries.

Now, two of the officers involved have been placed on “administrative leave,” and hundreds of students have hit the pavement at UF in protest of police brutality. Sites like Yahoo! Answers and Facebook have registered an outbreak of questions and discussions about the event.

If Andrew Meyer wanted to provoke attention when he addressed the Massachusetts senator, he got it. But we doubt he wanted to come up against an electronic stun gun—or to be known forever as the guy who yelped, “Don’t Tase me, bro!”