Cranberry Juice Guy 420doggface208: How a Viral Video Changed His Life

• 37-year-old Nathan Apodaca – AKA @ 420doggface208 – shows a spot-sync with Fleetwood Mac on a longboard with a bottle of cranberry juice in tow.
• TikToker, whose fan base on the app has grown to roughly 2.8 million, is no newcomer to viral fame and is known for its fun dance videos and good vibes.
• Apodaca told Insider that its content won’t change anytime soon, saying, “I’ll just do it, it won’t change.”
• You can find more stories on the Insider homepage.

As the quarantine progressed, there was an online trend towards healthy, relaxing, and empathetic content. From videos like the explosive TikTok sketch “Meatier / Meteor” to the end of the dinosaurs to a viral video of two violinists recreating the sinking ship scene of “Titanic” in a toilet paper corridor in March, people have decided on content, that make you feel good.

Perhaps nothing hit that target more than a viral longboarding video of 37-year-old Nathan Apodaca, better known online at his handle @ 420doggface208.

In the video, Apodaca is walking down the curve of a highway, holding his cellphone in one hand and a jug of Ocean Spray cran raspberry juice in the other. Synchronizing his lips with Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 “Dreams”, he takes a sip of his juice and crouches on his board while Stevie Nicks coos.

How

I don’t use this verbiage often but this is a whole vibe. simple as that pic.twitter.com/NfdLsgLkxu

— DrewFrog (@DrewFrogger) September 25, 2020

Apodaca’s video is a “whole mood. It’s that simple. ”Ocean Spray, who gave Apodaca a new truck, and Fleetwood Mac drummer Mick Fleetwood, who created a TikTok account to recreate the video, caught the eye.

Apodaca told Insiders that rumors of a collaboration with Travis Scott “[blown] disproportionately “after someone asked what they would do if Travis Scott stretched out.” But that would be great to do a promo for someone like this, “he said.

Apodaca submitted the now iconic video on his way to work in Idaho

Apodaca filmed the iconic video on his way to work in a potato warehouse one morning in Idaho (which, as he told the postal registry, takes vacation from to manage his viral fame). After his car shorted out, he didn’t want to wait for it to jump, so he decided to “keep going” [his] Board, “Cran raspberry juice in tow. He also said he had to put out a video to keep his following that he insider entertained with around 720,000 people he calls “Souljahz”.

“I usually see the video in my head before I do it,” Apodaca told Insider on the phone. “I heard the song and saw the video in my head as I came down on foot and saw where it turned on the highway.

“I thought, ‘okay, that’s perfect because I can just roll all the way down. I can get a smooth video, don’t have to set up the video, turn off my juice and come back later, ‘”he said.

Apodaca shot the video in one shot and decided not to go up the hill to film it again. When he got to work he considered putting it out – “I wasn’t going as fast as I wanted,” he said – but the mood of the video was “stable”. He decided that he could just shut down the video if it wasn’t going well and posted it.

Now, two weeks after he originally posted it, the video has roughly 35.5 million views and 6.3 million likes on TikTok alone.

The Fleetwood Mac sound is a staple in the video’s draw, and Billboard reported that “Dreams” had its biggest week of streaming since the video exploded online.

“Growing up my mom, dad, uncles, aunts, everyone was always Fleetwood Mac, Hall & Oates, Marvin Gaye and Al Green,” Apodaca told Insider, saying that he doesn’t have a favorite music genre and hears everything from Reggae to country. “Only they raised me with music from old times.”

This isn’t Apodaca’s first brush to go viral

Apodaca told Insiders that it had a significant following on social media even before its video went mega-viral. Known for his dance videos and flawless vibes, his videos regularly garnered thousands of views and likes on the platform.

According to an interview with the LA Times, @ 420doggface208 is actually his second TikTok account – the first, @ doggface208, was banned in 2019 after Apodaca posted a video promoting its goods. The first time he went viral was for a video doing the infamous “Git Up” dance challenge.

Apodaca told Insiders that its merch sales have skyrocketed since the video went viral. Previously, he hand-embroidered hats, which in his opinion only brought in around $ 1,000. Apodaca said he is currently not making the hats in his shop by hand due to demand. Hoodies and shirts with his handle and the immediately recognizable image of him drinking cranberry juice from his mug on the highway can now be seen in his merch shop.

That doesn’t mean the days of his custom merch are over. “I’m just here with a whole stack of hats,” he told Insider. “So I’ll make my own little special edition of a run of the last of what I have.”

Apodaca’s video offers some much-needed vibes for the current moment

Apodaca admits that his mood added to the energy of his viral video, saying, “I’m cold, you know what I mean?

“I don’t like conflict … everything can be resolved with a simple conversation. And if it’s not possible and you go your way, I’ll go my way, you know? Two tears in one bucket. ”He said.

That kind of energy is something that takes deep comfort in the midst of the madness of an election season occurring during the global pandemic. The LA Times’ Mikael Wood described Apodaca’s video as a “viral antidote to Trump’s mayhem.”

On a personal level, Apodaca said that the video’s success and a wave of donations helped him become “more comfortable” financially. “I can pay my phone bill on time, and the donations I’ve been blessed with can get me a down payment on a house, and my lady has savings that she has been saving for over 20 years, so she throws that in too. Hopefully it comes.” I’ll soon be in a house, “he said.

“It was just a little better, you know what I mean?” He told Insider. “Still smiles no matter what, but just a little more comfortably.”

It doesn’t seem like its viral fame is going to decline much in the near future. Apodaca now has roughly 2.8 million followers on TikTok and said he was coming on Instagram Reels. Even though he said it is now more difficult to comment and interact with his audience than before, he still tries to like as many comments as possible.

Apodaca told Insiders that its content on social media will not change. “I’ll just do it, that won’t change,” he said. “I’ll keep skateboarding and doing my longboard videos because it makes me feel good. My little dance videos, my little skits that I do, are just exciting for me. It’s fun and exciting because I see the joy it brings to people. ”