‘They admitted it themselves’: Bar staff and patrons accused of racism in viral TikTok
A bar in Cincinnati was called out in a TikTok after their bar staff and patrons appeared to admit to being racist. Several uploads of the video are now going viral, leading to the bar's exodus from multiple social media platforms.
312 Bar was the subject of a recent video from TikToker @melissaequality, and while her initial video has been taken down, others on the platform preserved it and added their own commentary.
That included @TizzyEnt, who prefaced his sharing of the video by remarking, "So if you happen to find yourself in Cincinnati, Ohio, and you're thirsty. Let me show you where you don't want to go for a drink."
The clip in question shows @melissaequality in media res, having a heated conversation with a bar patron who says, "Put that on TikTok so Chinese can look at it."
The woman behind the bar then said, "Go fuckin' tell your 30,000 followers that ..."
"That this is a racist bar, and they shouldn't come here, right?" the TikToker finished for her.
At least two patrons then showed assent, saying, "Yes." It's unclear if the staff concurred. Perhaps it was sarcastic, or just to humor her, but as @TizzyEnt observed, "There may even be a few people in the Cincinnati area who might have a problem with what you're doing and saying, and come tell you about it."
He also pointed out, that while the bartender was right in noting that the TikToker who originally posted the video does have around 30,000 followers—it's now up to around 32,500—he noted, "I have just a smidgen more than she does," cutting to his TikTok profile showing more than three million followers.
He wasn't the only content creator to share. TikToker @soogia1, with more than 300,000 followers, provided her own caustic take on the video.
"You heard it," she noted of the original TikToker's exchange with the bartender and bar patrons. "They admitted it themselves. It's a racist bar and they don't want you to go there."
She added, "I love knowing that that smug little not-nice girl behind the bar realizes that it is so much more than just 30,000 people. Now, literally millions of people have seen this video. I hope she's crying. I know that's mean, but I hope she's crying."
Another TikToker, @eatschmitt, offered to review the bar's mistakes with them, which included "being fuckin' racist" and "challenging TikTok to a petty-off."
312 Bar appears to be in a near-complete social media exodus, starting with the bar's website being down. Though its SEO meta description as "a friendly bar located in Deer Park," where they claim to "treat strangers like friends, and friends like family" is still intact, the link from Google goes to a blank page reading, "Error establishing a database connection."
The bar's Facebook page isn't publicly accessible; the link goes to a standard Facebook default page with the heading, "This Content Isn't Available Right Now," and text that reads, "When this happens, it's usually because the owner only shared it with a small group of people, changed who can see it or it's been deleted."
Its Yelp page, currently displaying 108 ratings with a 1.5 star average, sports a "Public Attention Report." The Google reviews appear unaffected, though, with its most recent review coming a month ago from someone who claimed, "I’m a traveling salesman and my job often brings me to Cincinnati. The 312 bar is my FAVORITE place to go."
However, someone on Reddit's r/cincinnati subreddit, in a post exploring the brouhaha, claimed that the Google reviews had initially gone dark but "Google has them back online but without a single review in the last month," responding to someone who had claimed the Google reviews weren't findable online.
Some in that post asserted that the bar was now permanently closed, though that claim is in dispute. One person posted on Monday to say, "When I left for work this morning, a beer truck was outside. I couldn't see if they were delivering or picking up, but all I can say is the bar has been dark and quiet since like Thursday."
The Daily Dot reached out to 312 Bar by phone, during what's listed as its normal business hours, but no one answered and its voicemail box was full. The Daily Dot also reached out to @melissaequality via TikTok comment.
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