Simply being a contestant on Jeopardy! is a dream for many people and a select few get to actually experience life on the show. As part of that experience, participants are interviewed by legendary host Alex Trebek and, on Tuesday evening, a contestant decided to use that platform to put forth a particular gesture.
As you can see, the young man, while representing his university during the annual College Championship competition, flipped his middle finger in the direction of Trebek and the audience. This seemed to be a clear example of a purposeful move to generate some sort of additional attention, but the fact that it made it on the show for this length of time was also rather impressive.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BQ0d1BShabV/?taken-by=uproxx_sports
Predictably, the internet took grand notice of the act.
Yo viraj, what did America do to make you flip us all the bird #jeopardy pic.twitter.com/cHQaHtslfs
— Big Smooth (@Big__Smooth) February 22, 2017
https://twitter.com/debsterbread/status/834201187369025538
https://twitter.com/_Gabby101/status/834201313080655872
Think Viraj just won a bet that he could flip the bird on national TV? #jeopardy
— Matt Pelsor (@MattPelsorRadio) February 22, 2017
https://twitter.com/nkgtri/status/834205080974983168
In fact, former Jeopardy! champion and poker standout Alex Jacob made light of the event by referencing the non-existent Jeopardy! rules against it.
Well, in fairness, I don't remember them ever telling you NOT to flip off the camera during your interview segment #Jeopardy pic.twitter.com/65QFzOgEco
— Alex Jacob (@whoisalexjacob) February 22, 2017
Needless to say, this is one of the more exciting things that have occurred on the show in some time that didn’t involve rap music, especially since basketball podcaster Loren Lee Chen is no longer the reigning champion and making Golden State Warriors jokes. It takes some level of courage to put forth what many would consider an obscene gesture for this long on national television, but that Stanford education helped to provide the background to execute it.