Best Buy trying to fire employee over iPhone4 vs HTC Evo videos

"By now it seems like just about everyone has seen the iPhone 4 vs. HTC EVO video (and the rebuttal video). The video portrays an electronics store employee trying to convince a person looking for an iPhone 4 to buy an HTC EVO 4G instead. It's hilarious - like all good humor, so funny because it's at least partially true. But you know who didn't find it funny? Best Buy. How do I know that? Because they're trying to fire the kid who made it.

The video in question was made by Brian Maupin, a 25-year-old based in Kansas City, Missouri. For the past three and a half years he's been working at Best Buy selling mobile phones. He's probably not going to be doing that anymore as Best Buy has suspended him indefinitely and is currently taking the steps to terminate him, Maupin tells us. The reason? The video.

The video became so popular (it currently has nearly 1.3 million views on YouTube) that someone at Best Buy corporate saw it. They then put two-and-two together that it was an employee at one of their stores that made it, and the hammer came down. 'They felt it disparaged a brand they carried (iPhone/Apple) as well as the store itself and were fearful of stockholders & customers being turned off to Best Buy Mobile,' Maupin says."

(MG Siegler, TechCrunch, 1 July 2010)

Fig.1 Tiny Watch Productions, 2010. 'iPhone4 vs HTC Evo'.
Fig.2 Tiny Watch Productions, 2010. 'HTC EVO vs iPhone4'.