If Internet users could vote for a winner of Ardrey Kell High School's senior talent show, there's no doubt that they'd choose Mike Senatore's water bottle flip.
Senatore's performance was a pretty simple trick, but the flawless execution has propelled the trick to viral fame.
On the face of it, it seems pretty basic: The water sloshing around in the bottle while it's in midair shifts the bottle's center of gravity around, which helps it stick the landing. But getting the exact right amount of flip takes a lot of practice and coordination.
The flip is impressive enough, but every other detail of Senatore's performance -- the epic music, the dramatic dance toward the table, the casually flawless flip and the ecstatic crowd -- all contribute to making the moment sublime.
Senatore told The Charlotte Observer he's not sure he could hit that moment again; apparently, his exaggerated run-up came after he misjudged the distance to the table.
"If you asked me to do it in front of a couple thousand people I don’t know if I could hit it again," he said.
The 18-year-old said he'd been planning and practicing his trick for almost a year.
"I (wanted) to be in the talent show and it’s the one thing I can do," he said.
Senatore is planning to attend the University of South Carolina in the fall and major in political science. Until then, he's focusing on parlaying his viral fame into an appearance on "Ellen."
Read more here.
About the Author
