MARIPOSA Calif. — He was known as the “Double Rainbow Guy” and was an internet sensation a decade ago. Paul L. Vasquez, whose awestruck reaction to a double rainbow on his YouTube video went viral, died Saturday. He was 57.
The burly California resident, nicknamed “Bear,” shot a 3-minute, 29-second video from his mountainside home near Yosemite National Park in January 2010, The Modesto Bee reported. The sight of the double rainbow was spectacular, but it was Vasquez’s reaction that lured 46 million viewers to his video.
“Double rainbow, oh my God,” Vasquez says in the video. “It’s a double rainbow, all the way. Whoa, that’s so intense.”
Vasquez can be heard, laughing, crying and screaming with joy throughout the video.
“What does this mean?” Vasquez asks, punctuating his commentary with more “whoas” and screams. “Oh, my God, it’s so bright and vivid.”
Vasquez’s video went national when late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel tweeted about the Mariposa resident’s reaction, the Bee reported,
According to the Mariposa County Coroner’s Office, Vasquez died early Saturday afternoon in the emergency room of John C. Fremont Hospital, the newspaper reported.
Friends and family members quickly posted tributes on social media.
“Somewhere over the Rainbows, Paul,” friend Jeanne Miller commented on his last photo.
On his Facebook page earlier this month, Vasquez said he had not been feeling well.
“My lungs are feeling congested, I’m suspecting pollen, after my nap I tested my oxygen level, it’s under 80, I have a fever of 100.2 I’m having a little trouble breathing if I walk in my apartment but it’s not to bad if I’m not moving," Vasquez wrote on May 3. "I signed up to make an appointment to get a COVID-19 test.”
Vasquez said he was certain he was not infected with the coronavirus.
Vasquez parlayed his fame into some commercial opportunities. He appeared with “Friends” star Jennifer Aniston is a commercial for Smartwater and also appeared in ads for Microsoft and Delta Air Lines, the Bee reported.
“His ‘Double Rainbow’ basically wrote the book on what a viral video was,” Robert Borchard, Vasquez’s, friend, told the newspaper Sunday. Borchard called Vazquez an “amazing character.”
“No matter where I was or what I was doing, Paul was a bright spot, always enthusiastic about the world,” Borchard told the Bee.
In a 2015 CNN report called “‘Double Rainbow Guy’ of YouTube fame: Where is he now?”Vasquez said,“You can’t look at a rainbow anymore and not think about me. That’s just the way it is.”
Cox Media Group
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