MYSTERIOUS VIDEO SHOWS BULLDOZING OF HUNDREDS OF GIBSON FIREBIRD X ELECTRIC GUITARS:

A mysterious video that started circulating on the internet today seems to show just that. (Apparently, as you can read more about below, a video of the destruction first surfaced months ago, though the video above was uploaded to YouTube Tuesday night.) In it, a large, tracked construction vehicle of some sort runs over rows of hundreds of Firebird X models.

It’s not clear from this video if this is Gibson itself doing the destruction, hiring a contractor to do the destruction, or some independent entity that happens to have hundreds of these guitars lying around and no longer wants to play them. It could be that Gibson’s not involved in any way shape or form, though it’s hard to believe someone would do this entirely of their own volition. (Again, as you can read in Gibson’s response below, these guitars are in fact Firebird X models, which Gibson says had defective, unsafe components.)

The YouTube channel BJ’s World previously posted a separate video of a construction crew tearing down Gibson’s Memphis guitar factory, which closed in 2018.

No telling how many guitars are in this video, but let’s estimate there are 250. On the used market, these can reasonably go for $1,600 USD a pop, so that’s about $400,000 of inventory.

While the original video was pulled, this slightly edited version illustrates the destruction in question. It’s like mid-‘60s-era Pete Townshend guitar destruction on a massive scale:

I felt a great disturbance in the Force. As if hundreds of really mediocre Gibson guitars cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced.