McSorley was walking to school through thick snow in chilly winter weather in Sperrin, near Londonderry, Northern Ireland, dressed in his school blazer, without a coat, when he was stopped for an interview by UTV’s North West correspondent Gareth Wilkinson, who had been speaking to local people about the frosty conditions.
When the news presenter asked the schoolboy what he thought about the harsh winter weather, he answered in the thickest Irish accent ever, “Oh God you wouldn’t be long gettin’ frostbit.”
Responding to a question about how he was able to walk to school in the freezing cold, he replied, “We had to go anyway. We hadn’t much of a choice in the matter.”
The clip of the TV interview went viral immediately after it was posted online, receiving a whopping 3.5 million views in three days, while the hashtag #frostbit began trending on Twitter within hours.
Many native speakers of the English language said they could hardly follow what McSorley was saying and that they had never heard the English language being spoken in that manner.
Some viewers said humorously that the teenager’s accent was “the best accent in the world.” The Daily Dot said he “has the best accent you’ve never heard.”
One viewer commented, “My favorite thing today… in fact maybe ever. Long live local news reports.”
The massive viral response to the clip caused the TV interviewer to tweet, “The ‘Frostbit’ boy I interviewed in Sperrins is Ruairi McSorley. That’s how he talks you couldn’t make him up.”
He tweeted again soon after: “3.5 million hits and counting! Frostbit Boy Ruairi McSorley from Co. Derry is an overnight internet sensation @utv #frostbit.”
After his Irish accent catapulted him to stardom, Mcsorley was invited to a follow-up interview with UTV. Reacting to the news that his interview had gone viral, he exclaimed, “Oh God it’s mad craic altogether. Imagine that!”
UTV discovered that McSorley had been an Internet celebrity even before the interview. The teenager, who told UTV that he aspires to become a chat show host, is well known in his local area. He manages a YouTube channel where he posts clips of himself doing comedy celebrity impressions.
His repertoire of celebrity impressions is impressive. It includes a wide range of celebrities, such as Dragon’s Dens’ Hillary Devey, Coronation Street characters, such as Deirde Barlow, and Ardal O’Hanlon, the Irish comedian who played Dougal McGuire in Father Ted.
One of his YouTube videos in which he does impressions has more than 160,000 views.
