It was a rat race to nowhere.
A New York City rat is being compared to “Sisyphus” after it was spotted making a never-ending climb up a descending escalator. A clip of the rat’s futile-seeming ascent has racked up over 2.2 million views on TikTok in just two days.
The clip, uploaded Wednesday ago by TikTokker Jimmy James, shows the game rodent hopping up the steps of a down-bound escalator in the subway as the “Rocky” theme plays in the background.
As the camera zooms out, it becomes apparent that the rat’s race to the top is in vain: The rapidly-descending steps make it so the critter’s effectively hopping in place no matter how hard he tries.
The TikTok wit-errati had a field day with the rodent’s involuntary stairmaster routine.
“Some say he is still trying to ascend to this day….” quipped one online comedian, while another wrote, “Sometimes life do be like that.”
A third joked, “This is what it feels like job hunting in 2024.”
Others analogized the rodent to Sisyphus, the tyrant from Greek mythology who was sentenced by Hades to repeatedly push a boulder up a hill, only for it to roll back down again when he reached the top.
Fortunately, unlike his Greek counterpart, Templeton did eventually reach his destination.
A follow-up video shows the dogged rodent finally hopping its way to the top of the automated staircase a la Batman escaping the prison pit in “The Dark Knight Rises.”
Either way, the rat’s initial ascent is perhaps a perfect metaphor for NYC’s war on rodents, which appears to be going nowhere despite the massive effort.
Since Mayor Eric Adams took office, rodent complaints have spiked nearly 8% across New York City troubling data shows.
According to The Post’s analysis of city records, there were 41,748 rat sightings and other vermin-related complaints made through the city’s 311 hotline in 2023.
This marked a 1.5% increase from 41,120 a year before; a 7.6% increase from the 38,809 complaints fielded in 2021 during Bill de Blasio’s final year as mayor; and 32% more than the 31,644 complaints in 2019.
