The video, posted on Twitter to Internet acclaim, was a quickly-done, planned labor of love.
On Sunday, August 25, TU freshmen Achmed Johnson and Logan Seeley posted a video to Twitter. In just a week, the video gained around five million views, 138 thousand shares, and 360 thousand likes.
The video was first posted in 18 separate parts on Snapchat, then compiled for Twitter. It starts out simply, with Johnson scanning his ID to enter Fisher South. Next, he scans it in through his wallet, then through his backpack. It then gets more and more complex, as he scans it through a “Call of Duty: Black Ops” case, a Tide Pods package, a microwave and a guitar.
The caption on the video reads “Mom: ‘Are you learning anything in college?’ Me: .”
The idea for the video came from something small. “[Johnson] had [his ID] in his pocket, and our hands were full or something, and he put his leg up there and we were like, ‘That worked?’ so we went from there,” said Seeley.
Johnson remarked how it only “took a day to come up with a caption that would be famous.”
They planned each of the 18 ideas out on a whiteboard before taping any of it. Even with their planning, they did not expect the video to go quite as viral as it did. Johnson was expecting “25,000 likes, so [the video] overshot a lot.”
Well over 900 people replied to the tweet, with a few Twitter users debated whether the boys deserved free tuition based on their creativity.
Seeley’s favorite replies “were the serious ones, they named the technical scanner that it was … [the Twitter user] was like Elon Musk down there.”
Even though the video is now famous on campus, the boys do not want the attention the video has garnered. “I’ve been disguising myself. I’ve been wearing my hoodies and my glasses to class,” said Johnson. “I hate when people talk to me that I don’t really know, you know? It’s awkward. I hate crowds.”
Try as he might, Johnson has been unable to escape all of the stardom. According to Johnson, several students began whispering one day after his name was called in attendance.
The pair are not opposed to all forms of fame, however.
After the video went viral, Johnson’s mom told him, “You’re going to be on Ellen!”
Johnson joked back, “Thanks, Mom, I know.”
Johnson direct messaged both Ellen DeGeneres and Lil Yachty, but neither have replied as of yet.
Watch the video here.
