That One Sound is a weekly column from senior internet culture writer Audra Schroeder that explores the origin of popular sounds heard on TikTok. Suggestions? Tips? Email audra@dailydot.com.
This week’s sound is a song that’s been around for nearly 10 years, but a Louisiana photographer just happened to catch a man rapping along to it on Fat Tuesday and sent it into overdrive on TikTok’s FYP. A week later, the original video has more than 19 million views.
Here’s the story behind that viral “Thinking with My Dick” video.
The sound
The sound is a Kevin Gates track, “Thinking with My Dick,” from 2013’s Stranger Than Fiction. In this case, it’s being lip-synced by a guy in a blue shirt holding an American flag cup. Behind him, a woman claps along, and children can be seen nearby. The lyrics being lip-synced: “Not too pretty in the face, but she super thick/I’m just thinking with my dick/My shit dumb.”
Not everyone used the footage in their TikToks: The “thinking with my dick” part was subverted for other means, but there was also the trend of people expressing their attraction to this man—or maybe just having the song stuck in their heads.
Others did their own reenactments. But a lot of people were just horny.
Where’s it from?
John E. Weatherall III is the photographer and videographer who shot the video, and Steven Barbosa is the guy rapping along. The footage was taken on March 1 in Lafayette, Louisiana, during a Mardi Gras parade. Weatherall was passing by on a Krewe De Krunk float, and “just started recording” when he saw Barbosa, he tells the Daily Dot.
Weatherall’s had other viral TikToks from Mardi Gras and community events in Lafayette, but this one truly blew up.
“Overall, I’m just overwhelmed because I’ve always wanted my hometown to be recognized,” Weatherall says. “My goal has always been to document the area I grew up in and capture moments, like Steven’s rapping, so that people can look back on them years from now.”
Barbosa posted the clip to his TikTok a couple of days ago, and he seems to have acknowledged (at least in the comments) that people are thirsting over him. He commented on Weatherall’s TikTok as well.
Sound off
Barbosa was apparently given tickets to a Kevin Gates concert in Lafayette next month. Gates, who’s from Louisiana, hasn’t yet responded to or commented on the TikTok personally, but his label posted it to its Instagram with the caption “#Mood all 2022.”
We reached out to Barbosa for comment.
