America’s Summer of Viral Meltdowns
The sign outside the Panera Bread in Chico, California, clearly informed customers that they must wear a mask in order to enter. But inside, one day in July, someone was breaking the rules, and William Cuthbertson, a 49-year-old librarian, instinctively started filming.
In the video, a woman waits in line and lets a surgical mask dangle from her hand rather than put it on her face to satisfy the restaurant’s harried manager. She is filming too, holding her camera up over her shoulder, pointing it at Cuthbertson. At the one-minute mark, she storms up to the counter. “You’re not going to serve me, because I’m not wearing a mask?” she yells. “That’s exactly right, dummy,” Cuthbertson interjects. The woman spins around, and approaches Cuthbertson and a friend of his, who is also filming. She blows air on them and grins as wide as the frame. “You think that mask is going to protect you? You fart off your ass and you can smell it,” she snarls, gesturing at her own butt, just before the video ends.
Cuthbertson says he started filming because of a combination of anger and solidarity—he hoped he was providing
