- Alright guys, my name is Russel and I created the floss.
And this, is that story.
Alright so it was 2014, I'm living a pretty normal life,
I'm like 5'1" I think, if I remember correctly,
probably less than a 100 pounds.
I wore this huge winter jacket, even in the summer,
like every single day I just wore it.
And I then I had this bowl cut,
and then I got this haircut and I wasn't as lame.
(laughs)
My OG, OG handle,
I like cats, I thought that they were majestic,
it fit my personality, so @majesticcatlover.
Yeah not a lot of people know about that one,
only like my close friends.
So during the summer of 2014,
me and my church we did this little retreat.
Yeah there's church and all but there's also like
little dance parties and stuff like that.
And at one of those dance parties,
I did the floss
and it got a lot of attention.
(cheering)
And me just being like a kid I liked the attention.
I decided to put it on Instagram
because it was like a fun dance move to do,
like comedic and not meant to be good.
I remember have 393 followrs,
and then I remember I posted on my page,
I was like "Hey guys, let's get to 400 followers"
I woke up with like, 5000 followers, and I was like,
we definitely hit 400.
All of my friends were texting me and saying like
"Wow" "Are you buying followers right now?"
"Because you're gaining pretty fast."
So I was at my friends house, right,
I was sitting in a chair, in the living room,
and the chair was brown,
I do remember the color of the chair, yes I do.
I was just on my phone, I had a green iPhone 5c at the time,
and then I looked at the top of my screen and it says,
"You were a tagged in a post."
So I clicked on the notification,
I looked at the amount of followers that that person had
and they had like 750k, and I was like "Oh my gosh,"
"I just got reposted by this page, and it tagged me."
And then I don't know, oh yeah!
Oh, I do remember!
I do remember how he found me, I remember how he found me.
Okay, when I posted that dance video on my page,
somebody commented #dontstopwhitepeople2k14
and then when he found that hashtag he was like,
"Hey, this kids got some moves."
I started getting thousands and thousands and thousands
of followers, and I was like,
"Oh my God, yo, yo, yo look!"
And that after that I went home,
I told my mom 'cause I was really excited about it.
At first I didn't know what was gonna happen.
Before that I had my notifications on,
when I started getting to around 50k,
and like I would charge my phone and wake up
and have a whole list of Instagram notifications,
and then eventually I just turned them off.
Okay, so one day Rihanna, yes, the Rihanna,
badgalriri on Instagram,
she posted one of my videos
and then the next day at school it was pretty hectic.
Everybody started coming up to me and was like,
"Whoa, Rihanna just posted you! How?"
At that point I gained like 40k followers in a day.
The following May we got an email from Katy Perry
talking about some "Hey, I want you to join me on SNL."
That's not true.
I thought it was just like somebody trolling,
or something like that.
But then we went through the paperwork, we found a contract,
and I was like, "Whoa, this is actually happening."
I was on the plane with my mom going to New York
and then we went to the hotel,
and then the next day it was the actual performance.
They walked me to the back of the stage before going on,
and then like I was texting all my friends, I was like,
"Bro, you better be watching this right now."
And I was like really scared because there was like
13 million people watching live
and you can't really mess up on live TV
and go back from that.
(upbeat techno music)
I mean, I didn't mess up so...
The song ended, and then I went off stage,
I was like, "Whoa, that actually just happened."
I would say that the biggest turning point was SNL for sure,
'cause I remember like the day after,
I had so many interviews and magazines to do
I did not realize that it would go as big as it did,
but I'm glad it did because I can travel a lot now.
And there was this one time I went to the ESPYs in LA,
but I didn't have tickets to get in,
so I was just kind of standing outside.
And then here comes Odell, everybody started swarming him,
and I was like, "Hey! Hey Odell."
And I'm pretty sure he knows me
because, he got me in,
he just grabbed my arm and pulled me in.
And he gave me a little slap on the chest
and I kinda got winded.
Who have I met?
I got a list.
Usher, Lil Yachty,
(fast forwarded voice)
Ludacris, The Rock,
(fast forwarded voice)
Jaden Smith, John Cena
(deep breath)
(fast forwarded voice)
The Yodel Boy, Lele Pons
(fast forwarded voice)
and T.I.
That took me forever to say. (laughs)
I don't really see myself as a celebrity,
I go out in public with my friends all the time,
you will see me at the mall, you will see me go bowling,
you will see me at McDonalds,
I don't see myself as the backpack kid much at all,
but I mean like I know I have to at some times
like when I'm in a video or something like that.
I've been riding this floss wagon for awhile,
but I gotta start branching out.
It makes me feel like I'm being caged into the dance,
like people only know me for the floss,
and I'm more than just that.
Dancing is not just my thing, I can do other things.
People are just going to get bored of that
and then I'm just gonna start losing followers
and falling off, and I don't want that to happen.
Music was something I've been wanting to do
for a little while now,
and so I dropped a single called Drip on Boat
with SwagHollywood,
and then that's starting to do pretty good
and then there's gonna be an EP coming after that.
If I were to give any advice to anybody,
it's all about having fun with it.
If you can't have fun with it, then it's not worth doing.
And that's where I am now, see ya everybody on the internet!
(light beat music)