Does a viral video authentically capture a teen girl punching holes in the tailgate of her father's pickup truck because he took away her phone? No, that's not true: The clip of the young woman is a re-titled excerpt of a video that was posted four days earlier as part of a TikTok user's campaign to build audience. It's one of a series of videos that started with the narrator promising to demolish his tailgate if he got 100,000 "likes". This version was taken from a longer clip in which she is one of four people who pound holes in the truck, with no mention of her phone or father.
The TikTok video appeared August 2, 2025 on the @thick_dad_shenanigans account (archived here) with following description: "Funny thing is I put her phone on her On her desk in her room before I left for work this morning." The on-screen caption said:
Took my 13-year-old daughter's phone awey last night! Her brother sent me this video while I was at work!!
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: Screenshot taken by Lead Stories of post at www.tiktok.com/@thick_dad_shenanigans.)
The series of videos begins with a July 22, 2025 TikTok video (archived here) in which the on-screen adult, hefting a pickaxe, bets viewers that they can't get him 100,000 likes and that if they do, he'll "stab this thing...into my tailgate" and demonstrates by swinging it toward the tailgate of a black Dodge truck, Wisconsin license plate cRK2633:
(Source: Screenshot taken by Lead Stories of post at www.tiktok.com/@thick_dad_shenanigans.)
One week later, July 29, the account posted to TikTok a video (archived here) of the bearded man pounding holes in the truck with a pickaxe, and of the girl, dressed identically to the way she dresses in the August 2 video, using a screwdriver to scratch graffiti into the tailgate. In the video, no mention is made of taking a daughter's phone:
(Source: Screenshots by Lead Stories, made into a graphic by Lead Stories, of video at www.tiktok.com/@thick_dad_shenanigans.)
On July 28, the @thick_dad_shenanigans posted a version of the video (archived here) in which the bearded male, the girl and two others smash holes in the tailgate of the same truck. Again, she's dressed the same as in the August 2 video. That footage is identical to the footage later posted with the claim that he took her phone and she vandalized his truck:
(Source: Screenshots by Lead Stories, made into a graphic by Lead Stories, of video at www.tiktok.com/@thick_dad_shenanigans.)
The same video footage of the younger men driving holes in the same truck is also featured in an @thick_dad_shenanigans video rewarding people for laying rubber (archived here) for the longest stretch in a vehicle:
(Source: Screenshots by Lead Stories, made into a graphic by Lead Stories, of video at www.tiktok.com/@thick_dad_shenanigans.)
