Did real news video show Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers being outrun by a viking in a wheeled bathtub, or a dancing "Techno Viking", on a Minneapolis street? No, that's not true: No real news outlet broadcast either video, which would have been newsworthy and fodder for talk shows, if real. The clip of a dancing "Techno Viking" originated from a self-described parody account that discloses it uses AI video and image generators. Many details of the bathtub viking video match those of the "Techno Viking" video.
The bathtub video appeared in a Jan. 18, 2026 Threads post (archived here) on the @bigfishinnet account. While a female newscaster narrated "live" coverage of a chase through downtown Minneapolis, text in the post read:
No this isn't Benny Hill, The Two Ronnie's, or Only Fools and Horses.
This is America under Trump
Here's what the video looked like on Threads:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of post on Threads.)
The Techno Viking video appeared in a Jan. 18, 2026 X post (archived here) on the @bigfishinnet account. While the same female newscaster character narrated "live" coverage of the man dancing away from ICE agents - some of it identical to the bathtub viking chase narration - the lower-left chyron displayed in blue the call-sign "KTSP", which is a television station serving Minneapolis. Lead Stories manually searched the KTSP website, finding no reference to the bathtub viking. Text in the "Techno Viking" video read:
"ICE Chases Protestor In Major Escalation in Minnesota
The "Techno Viking" video looked like this on X:
The Techno Viking video originated on the humor/comedy account @Network_guy8 on X, whose account bio declares it publishes parody by an AI content creator:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of X account bio of @Network_guy8 .)
If real, television coverage of either chase would have been newsworthy worldwide, given extensive attention to the ICE surge in Minneapolis in January of 2026.
But, in response to search terms "bathtub viking and ICE" the Google News index of thousands of news sites found (archived here) no real stories, only references to the video spoof. Similarly, the Google News index found no real stories mentioning "Techno Viking, ICE, Minneapolis" (archived here).
The bathtub viking video showed an improbably giant set of skateboard trucks and wheels carrying a bathtub down the street with the same red-bearded viking on board and identical ICE agents giving chase.
Instead of the fake call-sign of a Minneapolis TV station in blue in the lower lefthand chyron, the bathtub viking video attributed the video to "POVArt", a handle that searches did not immediately link to any social media account.
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of video posted on X account @Network_Guy8.)
"Techno Viking" appears to refer to an ancient-in-social-media meme.
Video captured at a 2000 Berlin parade shows a shirtless, bearded man daning his way down the street, then scolding and ejecting someone for grabbing a blue-haired dancer, then being handed a water bottle. The video and images of him became used in what some say was the first meme, according to "The curious case of Technoviking" (archived here) a blog post by Andres Guadamuz, an intellectual property rights expert at University of Sussex, in England. The man in the original Berlin video asserted his privacy had been invaded, Guadamuz wrote, and his image used without his permission, then sued users of his image and won.
