Teens across the world have spent months coming together over a newfound admiration of Danny DeVito – and they’re doing it on TikTok.
TikTok, the shortform video platform fast on its way to overtaking the now-dead Vine (get over it), is flooded with quick clips that idolise the ‘Always Sunny In Philadelphia’ star. DeVito’s face is celebrated in artistic portraits, on printed sheets of paper, painted on graduation caps, plastered across family photos, and even laser cut in glass. It’s a hell of a sight:
It all seems to have started with a video from user CregTok set to the song ‘True American Hero’ by Ryan Beard.
That video alone has probably been viewed tens of thousands of times (TikTok doesn’t display views), and has over 50,000 heart reactions. It’s well loved! It’s funny! And it absolutely, definitely, started something:
While not every DeVito-obsessed video is set to Beard’s song, most of them are. The 21-year-old told PEDESTRIAN.TV he thought it took off because it was latching onto a specific individual and deifying them.
“Jeff Goldblum is another example,” he said. “I think it’s partially because of the irony of the fact that he’s physically the last person you would expect to be a hero, but it’s also because he’s a hilarious and incredibly likeable guy.”
Initially, Beard’s song lived on YouTube and he was annoyed at first when he heard the track ripped and put on to TikTok. But he says the credit he received from the intial video, and the countless others that have followed, has resulted in a ridiculous increase in interest.
“Since the meme blew up my YouTube video has gone from 2000 to 68,000 views.” Beard also said he’d gained another 25,000 followers on TikTok – a real indicator of how quickly viral success if becoming triggered and delivered on.
“I really love TikTok because it the masses find a sound funny and run with it, it can get a lot of traction for the original creator which is great because I’m a musical comedian,” he said.
DeVito’s explosion of popularity on TikTok mirrors the cult-like status he has achieved in pop culture, too. Recently, thousands of fans rallied behind a petition to have him replace Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, which… would be a very different film to say the least.
On TikTok, DeVito faces a wave of fan-art and newfound desire to stick his image all over the place. There’s also this girl, who filmed herself writing a letter to the actor asking him to be her god-father. Hope it all worked out.
