News Reporter Accidentally Turns on Facebook Filters Before Going Live

Justin Hinton is a news anchor/reporter for ABC affiliate WLOS in Asheville, NC. Asheville is a relatively small city with a population under 100,000 – but it and Justin have become momentarily infamous for a delightfully wholesome news blooper involving Facebook, snow, and some wild video filters.

Hinton was live streaming for the station’s Facebook page (presumably from a phone) to update viewers on weather conditions during a period of heavy snow. The snow was probably pretty newsworthy – as Asheville winter temperatures tend to hover around a balmy 50 degrees.

But what viewers really latched onto were the hilarious glitches accompanying the report…

It goes on like this for a while.

He’s a wolf, a wizard, a googly-eyed cartoon, and more as whatever streaming app they were using goes haywire.

Justin appears to be unaware until he catches a comment from the stream. “Wait, Misty, did I have a weird face?” he asks an unheard voice in the chat. “What is it doing to my face?” he says. “Now I’m excited to look back at this video and see what’s happening to my face.”

And yes, Justin got REALLY excited because he posted this to his feed later.

What was happening to his face would soon spread all over the internet, and make appearances on loads of media outlets, including some national coverage. The whole thing is pretty charming. And Justin seems to be the kind of easygoing guy to have a chuckle about it and enjoy the moment.

In a facebook post following the video going viral, Justin explains what went down:

Right before going live on Facebook on the WLOS ABC 13 station account to talk about snow, I somehow activated a filter generator. The photog I was working with said something about the screen having weird faces. He didn’t elaborate, so I said it would probably go away. Needless to say, it did not go away.

Comments were pretty universally warm.