He Wasn't Actually Peeing

Have you ever had your picture taken at an... unfortunate moment? Or worse yet, been caught on video when it really looked like you were doing something you weren't? It doesn't entirely matter what the confusion is, so much as people's willingness to assume the worst, which is precisely what happened to a veteran meteorologist on national television over the weekend. But now, anchor Brian Williams has leapt in to save the day — he explained that NBC meteorologist Mike Seidel wasn't peeing in the snow while on-air with Lester Holt, despite how it may have looked, and he called for an apology for the confusion.

Seidel is no stranger to inclement and chaotic weather, as he's been reporting out of extreme conditions for years. In this case, he was in the thick of a storm in North Carolina when, according to Williams, he lost his cell phone connection to the NBC studio, and thus didn't realize he was live on-camera. And while he took off his gloves and fiddled with his phone to call them back, turned away from the camera, it painted a very particular picture — basically, it kinda looked like he was pissing in the snow, and that was all it took for social media to explode.

Social media owes our friend Mike Seidel an apology. The intrepid and fearless Weather Channel meteorologist was the victim of some wild misinformation when this happened on the news here Saturday night. ... that's when the rumors hit that he was perhaps writing his name in the snow.

Of course, Williams is well-known to be a good sport with a decent sense of humor, so one hopes his request for an apology for Seidel isn't too stern. Though really, it wouldn't much help if it was — he's calling for "social media" to apologize, after all, so good luck with that. Nor would it have been a big deal if he actually had been, ahem, "writing his name in the snow." Because believe it or not, everybody has to go now and then, even the people on the TV. They're just like us!

Notwithstanding however, Williams, NBC (and Seidel himself, one assumes) wanted to clear the air about this humble mix-up, and that's all well and good. Unfortunately, it does steal away basically all the replay value of that misunderstood footage, though. If I wanted to watch somebody struggle to make a phone call with their back to me, I'd... well, I wouldn't! Because I don't want to see that, I just want to see weather reporters sneakily peeing in snow drifts. Is that so much to ask?

Images: NBC Nightly News/YouTube; Mike Seidel/YouTube