# Empire State Building Climber Gets Tased, Banned For Life, And Somehow Misses The Point Entirely
Ah, New York City. The city that never sleeps, probably because it’s too busy trying to figure out which unhinged tourist is going to try and recreate *King Kong* next. This week’s Darwin Award nominee? A 21-year-old guy who decided the Empire State Building’s observation deck wasn’t thrilling enough for his TikTok clout and instead went full Spider-Man on the Art Deco spire. Spoiler alert: the NYPD does not give out participation trophies for vertical trespassing.
Let’s set the scene. You’re at the Empire State Building, paying $44 for a ticket to stand in the cold with 400 other tourists, all of whom are taking the exact same photo of the Chrysler Building. You’re probably thinking, “Wow, this is pretty high up. I should probably stay behind this railing like a normal person with a functioning prefrontal cortex.” This guy? He looked at that same railing and thought, “Nah, that’s for cowards. I’m going to climb the actual lightning rod like I’m trying to get a signal for my Sprint flip phone in 2005.”
According to reports, the dude somehow bypassed security—which, let’s be real, is either terrifying or hilarious depending on how you feel about the TSA’s efficacy—and made it to the 86th floor observation deck. Then, like a raccoon that learned parkour from YouTube, he scaled the 200-foot antenna spire that sits on top of the building. That’s right. The part of the building that exists specifically to attract lightning. The part that is literally designed to be a giant metal rod sticking into the sky during thunderstorms. This man looked at that and said, “Yes, that is where I belong.”
Now, you might be thinking, “But what was his motivation? Was he a protestor? A performance artist? A guy who lost a bet while blackout drunk at 3 PM?” Nope. He was just some guy who wanted to “make a statement.” What statement? Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe “I am physically fit but mentally a potato.” Maybe “I think I’m the main character in a movie nobody asked for.” Maybe “I saw that one scene from *The Amazing Spider-Man 2* and took it as a tutorial.”
The NYPD, who have absolutely zero patience for this kind of nonsense, did what they do best: they waited until he came down (because it’s cold up there and he probably had to pee), and then they tased him. Good. Tasing is underrated. It’s the perfect middle ground between “please stop” and “we will use lethal force.” It’s the “we’re not mad, we’re just disappointed” of law enforcement, except it comes with 50,000 volts of electricity.
So now this guy is facing a whole laundry list of charges: trespassing, reckless endangerment, and probably “being a colossal dumbass in a public place.” He’s also been banned from the Empire State Building for life. Which, I mean, okay. That’s like banning a guy who ate all the free samples from a Costco. You were never going to buy a membership anyway, bro. You already saw the view. You got the 4K HD experience with a side of felony.
But here’s where the story gets peak Reddit. The comments section on every single article about this is a dumpster fire of hot takes. You’ve got the “Free him, he’s just a kid having fun” crowd. You know, the same people who think graffiti is “urban expression” and not just property damage. Then you’ve got the “Lock him up and throw away the key” boomers who want him to face the death penalty for mildly inconveniencing a Tuesday afternoon. And then, of course, you have the “He should have jumped” edgelords who are just mad that they didn’t think of it first.
Look, I’m not saying he should be waterboarded. But I *am* saying that if you climb a national landmark because you saw a 2012 Andrew Garfield movie and thought, “Yeah, I could do that,” you deserve whatever happens to you. You are a walking insurance claim. You are a liability waiver that forgot to get signed. You are the reason we can’t have nice things.
And let’s talk about the real victims here: the other tourists. Imagine you’re on that observation deck, trying to get a cute photo for your Instagram story, and suddenly some dude in a hoodie is climbing the building like he’s late for a meeting with God. Now your nice photo of the Manhattan skyline is ruined because in the background there’s a guy who looks like a lost maintenance worker. You paid $44 for this. You waited in line for an hour. You could have been at the Top of the Rock instead. But no. You got the “bonus feature” experience.
Also, can we talk about the sheer audacity of doing this in 2025? Security cameras are everywhere. Drones are everywhere. There are probably three different satellite images of you taking a dump in the woods. And this guy thought, “I’ll just sneak past the guards and climb the most famous building in New York. What could go wrong?” It’s not 1974, buddy. You don’t get to be Philippe Petit. You get to be a viral TikTok video that gets removed for “glorifying dangerous behavior” within 48 hours.
The worst part? He’s going to be fine. He’ll probably get a slap on the wrist, a few months of probation, and then he’ll sell the rights to his story to Netflix for a shitty documentary called *Climbing for Clout* or *Spire of Stupidity*. He’ll get a podcast deal. He’ll do a Cameo where he calls you a coward for not climbing a skyscraper. The system rewards this kind of behavior now. We live in a world where
Final Thoughts
It’s impossible to look at the Empire State Building’s granite facade without seeing it as a gauntlet thrown down to human ambition, but these climbers—whether driven by spectacle or some desperate personal creed—forget that the real test isn’t reaching the spire, but understanding what you’re trying to prove when you get there. The structure stands as a monument to collective risk, yet every rogue ascent is a solo act of defiance against that very legacy, a gamble where the house always wins. In the end, scaling that pinnacle doesn’t make you a hero; it just makes you another fleeting silhouette against a skyline built to last.