IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser.

Local news reporter's resurfaced deadpan analysis of February goes viral

This St. Louis reporter has no love for the second month of the year.
St. Louis reporter Kevin Killeen delivered a passionate broadcast in 2016 about the bleakness of the month February.
St. Louis reporter Kevin Killeen delivered a passionate broadcast in 2016 about the bleakness of the month February.KMOX News / Facebook

Is February the worst month of the year? One St. Louis reporter seems to think so. 

In February 2016, KMOX reporter Kevin Killeen broadcasted a two-minute segment about February, but didn’t necessarily highlight the second month of the year in the most positive light. In fact, Killeen kicked off the clip with one bold statement: “February is the worst month of the year, but it’s an honest month.”

The video showed Killeen standing atop a roof on a dreary day in St. Louis, surrounded by buildings that appeared dark, and dull as a fog spread across the sky. After referring to February as a “month that doesn’t hold up life any better than it really is,” Killeen said that the drabness of February even has a way of manifesting itself in the way that people walk around the city, and even the way people look.

“Look around downtown on a February work day,” Killeen said in a voiceover, the camera panning toward an overpass above a street. “This looks like a place where people who are being punished are sent.”

Killeen pointed out that even the demeanor of St. Louis residents is different when they cross the street in February than it is during the summer months.

Nobody is tap dancing or breaking into a Rodgers and Hammerstein song,” he said. “It’s their lunch hour and they’re just barely able to get across the street and hunker over a bowl of chili.”

February is so bad, Killeen said, that “even the land is tired.”

“Most of the birds who can afford it have gone to Florida and the trees that once cheered us, they're hard to look at this month," he said. "It's as if there is some awful truth out there in the trees. It's hiding in the branches. Look at them. Something that's been bothering you for a long time is out there. What is it? You can almost see the shape of it when all the color is gone, but life is stripped down to the starkness of February."

But Killeen might have put it best when he said, “That’s February for you.”

“It is bleak, it is honest, and it just tells you the way it really is,” he said, before recalling the wise words of his dad. “My father used to have a saying that if you can live through February, you’ll live another year.”

The video began circulating on Twitter on Feb. 1, 2022, nearly six years after its original broadcast. Multiple Twitter users have shared the clip — which now has over 870,000 views — lauding Killeen for his accurate depiction of the month.

Killeen himself responded to the virality of his six-year-old clip on Twitter, writing in part, “Thanks for all of the very kind words about my report on February.”

“I thought it was just me, but apparently a lot of us feel near to flickering out this month,” he added. “I avoid all major decisions in February — vacuuming, haircuts, swing dance lessons. The right path will emerge by spring.”

“I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry, but this is indeed the best description of February ever,” one Twitter user wrote, sharing the full video clip. “Thank you, @KMOXKilleen.”

In response to Killeen’s tweet, one person wrote, “Your take on February is hilarious and profoundly accurate. Thank you for the belly laugh.”

“The highlight of my week!” another user tweeted. “My kind of humor, the kind that is not a humor, but makes you do this thing we now call ‘lol’, but actually doing it and not just typing a three letter word to make the author feel all proud and rewarded. You have the juice of life!"