MOULAMEIN farmer China Gibson has grabbed the world’s attention after uploading a video showing a snake in his trouser leg that has received more than five million views in less than a day.
Facebook social content hubs, Viral Hog and LADbible, latched onto the video and are giving it a worldwide audience that continues to grow by the minute.
Most readers of The Guardian will be familiar with the antics and vocabulary of China through his Moulamein Notes column.
Followers of his Facebook page know he’s proud of his town, loves the farming life and is prone to regular run-ins with snakes.
But China took that to a new level last weekend when he pulled off an epic practical joke that has captured the world’s attention.
The Daily Mail wrote about his antics in a story posted online yesterday, but failed to get the punchline, reporting the incident as genuine.
Speaking with China yesterday, he was clearly loving his fifteen minutes of fame and said the plan was laid a week earlier after seeing a dead snake on the side of the road.
“I’ve probably got too many hours to kill sitting alone in my tractor, but I’d been thinking about my April Fool’s prank for some time,” he said.
“I came up with the idea a while back and just happened to come across the snake Saturday week ago.
“He’d been hit by a car fairly recently so I grabbed the opportunity and took him home with me.”
The video shows the snake up the trouser leg of his jeans with China acting mildly panicked as he discusses clamping his trousers to keep the snake at bay from the “family jewels”.
In true China Gibson style, he unleashes a Steve Irwin style narrative spiced up with a few words that would make the pope’s hair curl as he goes about extracting it.
“Once I’d filmed the video I was dying to get it up online but I had to wait until April Fool’s Day which nearly killed me,” he said.
While the video is not ridgy didge, China has had more than his fair share of real life encounters with both the Tiger and Brown snakes on his New South Wales property.
“They’re getting bigger these days I reckon,” he said.
“There’s plenty of food sources here for them, frogs and mice, so the snakes are definitely looking fattened up.”
Another video on his Facebook page shows an encounter with a live brown snake who is not enjoying the attention.
“I don’t kill them or hurt them in anyway,” he said.
“A bloke told me that for every snake you kill on your property it costs you around 20 grand in mice damage to crops.
“So while they’re not hurting me, I have no reason to hurt them.”
