Earlier this month Matt Austin, an evening anchor for News 6 in Orlando, shared a photo of him with his two daughters on his Facebook account. The photo which captured a sweet moment showed the family smiling with the two girls wearing dresses for their homecoming dance.
Critics on the internet, however, took it as an opportunity to dub Austin’s daughters’ dresses “proactive” and “inappropriate” in the comment section. They even called the dad crazy for allowing his daughters to dress up like that.
As you may suspect, this didn’t sit well with Austin and he released a mic-drop response to the trolls on his TikTok. The video has since been watched a whopping 5.3M times, as many people praised the dad for standing up for his daughters and telling trolls some wise things they need to hear.
News anchor Matt Austin recently shared a viral video defending his daughters' homecoming outfits that critics labeled as "proactive" and "inappropriate"
Image credits: flnewsman
It all started when Austin shared a sweet picture of him and his daughters dressed up in homecoming dresses on his Facebook
Image credits: flnewsman
In an interview with his news channel, Austin said that he thought it was innocent when he posted a photo. “I posted just a picture of me with two of my daughters. It is the first time they’re both going to homecoming — because one’s a freshman, one’s a senior. I always post a picture, whether it’s homecoming or prom, and did not think twice about it,” he recounted.
But the critics flooded Austin with nasty comments suggesting that not only were the girls’ dresses indecent, but that Austin himself was a bad father. “I tried to not post anything that would put them in a light where people would take shots at them and unfortunately... I felt a little responsible at first and guilty and then I was like, ‘There’s nothing wrong with this,’” he said.
Many parents flooded the dad with disgusted comments
Image credits: Matt Austin
To vent his frustrations, Austin turned to his TikTok channel where he defended his daughters in a viral video. But before pressing the post button, Austin asked for his daughters’ approval. “I said, ‘What do you think of this? I don’t know what will happen with this, but I don’t want to embarrass you,’” he said. “The response I got was, ‘This might be a little embarrassing, but you’re right, go ahead and do it.’”
Austin says that people are wrong to finger-point when it comes to what girls are wearing
Austin added that as the father of daughters, he has not always been willing to let his children express themselves through their clothing.
Moreover, Austin was not always so liberal when it comes to his daughters’ clothing choices and at some point, he tried to make them dress more modestly. However, he realized this kind of control may be doing more damage than good.
“It was my daughter’s first homecoming,” he said. “I still see her as this little baby in my arms and she’s like, ‘OK, I’m gonna try on this dress,’ and she picked out her favorite dress to walk out and show me.”
This is the full video that went viral on Austin's TikTok and got him lots of praise
Meanwhile, other people thought that the girls looked beautiful
