The internet is mourning the loss of Paul “Yosemite Bear” Vasquez, who passed away on May 9 of this year at age 57.
Most people probably wouldn’t know who Vasquez is by name alone, but if you were on the internet in 2010, you’d probably know him as “Double Rainbow Guy.” The pure, delightful video of Vasquez reacting with elation to the sight of a “double rainbow all the way across the sky” helped to define what “going viral” meant at the time.
Vasquez later stated on Jimmy Kimmel Live that he was sober when he spotted the colorful phenomenon but that in another one of his rainbow videos, he had “smoked some pot. “But I have a prescription, and it’s medicine, and it’s legal here in California,” he told Kimmel at the time.
Vasquez was also part of the martial arts community, at least for some time. Under the “Hungry Bear” nickname, he had his first and only fight back in 2005 for the King of the Cage Gladiator Challenge, which he lost to Ross Clifton via submission. He shared the video of his fight and detailed how training for it helped him lose a significant amount of weight.
“This was my strategy for loosing over 100 lb. I was going to die from obesity, I used MMA as a motivator to train and loose weight, I have since lost almost another 100 lb since this fight. For all the haters I dare any of you to get in the cage with me. It’s easy to say things from the couch, try actually doing it and see what it’s really like. My opponent God rest his soul was fighting his 8th fight while I was fighting my debut. He was 6′ 8″ tall and weighed 425 lb 8″ taller and 50 lb heavier than myself. To top it off five days before this fight I tore my left rotator cuff so my left arm didn’t work, I basically fought this experienced Giant with one arm tied behind my back,” he said in the video caption.
The cause of Vasquez’s death hasn’t been made public. He posted on social media six days ago that he was getting tested for COVID-19, but didn’t believe that he had the virus. “I’ll get my results in two days, however at this point I’m fairly certain that I don’t have it. I didn’t have a fever. Something else is going on with me. I’ll update later on,” he said. He died just days later.
