- Come on, this is so good.
- Stop! You're driving me crazy.
- ♪ Yo-del-ay-hee-oo ♪ Will it make me famous?
♪ (ragtime intro) ♪
- (FBE) Okay, so today, we're gonna show you some clips
of someone who we have covered before with the YouTubers,
but who continues to be so big online that we felt we wanted
to get the elders' perspective. - Okay.
- (FBE) First, we're gonna show you the video that started it all.
- Ah, the video that started it all.
- ♪ ...called the blues, oh lord ♪
- Oh, I love him. I love him so much. God bless.
- ♪ All I do is sit and sigh, "Oh Lord" ♪
- I've never seen this kid, but I thought I heard
something about him. - My first thought
was that that was a big put-on, but then, hey,
kid's been everywhere these days.
- Well, what a way to get the customers in.
- ♪ ...when she calls me sweet daddy ♪ - How precious. His little bow tie.
- ♪ ...all over ♪ ♪ I've lost my heart... ♪
- What's his name? I wish he was my grandson. (chuckles)
♪ ...used to you somehow ♪ - Just in the middle
of the supermarket.
- ♪ And I'm lonesome ♪ ♪ I got the lovesick...♪
- (laughs) He's got a career.
- 12-year-old singing about lovesick blues?
Oh, come on now. Kid seems to be talented.
All of a sudden, he was at Coachella
and some other things. I guess he's well accepted.
- (FBE) Well, that was actually Mason Ramsey yodeling
"The Lovesick Blues" by Hank Williams.
- Oh, that's why it sounded familiar.
- (FBE) After the video of this yodel was released, the internet quickly
turned him into a meme and remixed his song
in a variety of ways, so we got a few of those
to show you now. - (laughs) So in other words,
people took advantage of the little boy.
♪ (techno music) ♪ - ♪ All I do is... ♪
- Oh, god. (laughs) - That's cute. That's funny.
- (chuckles)
Ah, that's funny.
♪ (heavy bass music) ♪ - Oh, I like that beat.
- The way they mix it, I like it.
- It changes everything that it was.
- I think the kid did better.
- Why do they have to ruin everything?
♪ (heavy bass music) ♪
Yeah, the techno beat just doesn't do it.
- Actually, it's kind of sad in a way,
because he's so original and it's so sweet,
and them somebody has to take it and mess with it.
- It's cute. I mean, it's different. It's done with technology,
and the bounce was put in with the rhythm.
- ♪ (EDM music) ♪ - Oh my god. (laughs)
Oh, no.
- No. No.
♪ (music builds up) ♪
- Oh, I like this one.
♪ (bass drops) ♪ - Stop! You're driving me crazy!
- Oh, I don't like what they've done to him.
That wholesome look is gone.
- They're taking something innocent and making it into something else.
A little kid singing in a store, it's cute.
And now it's boom, boom, boom.
- Not my cup of tea. I like the original.
- It's kind of a strange mashup.
- Steal his look. So cute. It's just helping him.
- They're putting out his wardrobe and how much you can get--
how much they're selling it for.
- I love the bow tie, satin bow tie.
$250, that's amazing.
- Oh my god. Versace jeans? Yeah, right. (laughs)
- That's expensive. People who shop at Walmart
are not buying Versace jeans, that's for sure.
- You have to be an elder to get this one, so...
That's the Beatles, Abbey Road.
- Oh, that's awesome. (laughs) I love that. Abbey Road.
- Hell, if he doesn't get out of this crosswalk,
he's gonna get run over.
- "Me when I'm at Walmart..."
- "And hear the yodeling boy start singing
from the other side of the store."
- ♪ All I do is sit and sigh... ♪ - Is he... I don't know
if he's running away from it or running into action.
I don't know. (chuckles)
- Well, that's Prince Harry...
in Afghanistan.
I'm sure he wasn't running away from the sound of the boy singing.
- He'd rather go fight the war than listen to that. (chuckles)
- (amused) Statue of Liberty, huh? He replaced the statute.
- Well, I don't think he's gonna last very long. (chuckles)
It gets cold out there.
- Some people have too much time on their hands.
- I like that one. It just goes together.
It works with that wholesome look.
- I didn't like these takeoffs at all.
This is humor to appeal to younger people.
- (FBE) Well, the success of the Yodel Boy continued on.
And recently, he even signed to Atlantic Records.
- What?!
- (FBE) And he recently just released his debut single, "Famous."
And I have a piece of that to show you now.
- "Famous." Good for him.
- ♪ Don't get me wrong ♪ ♪ It's pretty cool to be on TV ♪
♪ So all the folks back home can see me ♪
- Oh, this is so good.
- ♪ All the things I used to dream about ♪
- Now, he's sharp.
- ♪ Yeah, it's pretty great ♪ ♪ Singing on the stage ♪
- This kid can sang. He can SANG.
- Bless his heart. Precious.
- ♪ Yeah, I hope the first question people ask me ♪
♪ Is how's your girl and how's your family ♪
- It's kind of cute. It has a nice beat.
- ♪ Talking 'bout you for days ♪ - Very nice.
- ♪ If I'm gonna be famous... ♪ - You will be famous for sure.
- ♪ I wanna be famous for loving you ♪
- Aww. Come on, this is so good.
- What's nice, he goes into a recording studio
with a bow tie.
- ♪ If I'm gonna be famous for something ♪
- That's a natural talent. - ♪ I wanna be famous
for loving you ♪ - Now, that's got promise.
That'll appeal to a lot of kids.
- I'm hoping for him it's more than his 15 seconds of fame.
Depends on what other material he can come up with.
And also, he's at that age
where if his voice changes,
that can be the end of the career.
- It sounds like the song was written for him.
He looks like he's 12 years old, and he's singing
about famous for loving you? Unless it's dedicated
to his mother in the beginning... But man, kid's good.
Kid's good. Wow. Mission accomplished.
- (FBE) So as you saw, the Yodel Boy is still popular
and has even performed at multiple large music festivals,
like Coachella and Stagecoach.
- Ah, he's been around.
- (FBE) Would this type of success have been able to happen
when you were growing up or is Mason's success
a product of the internet in this generation?
- Oh, I think the internet just makes people fly.
You start clicking on likes. It gets people's attention.
- He's a product of the internet stage,
because when I was growing up, even if you sing somewhere,
you won't be that famous.
- There weren't any self-directed avenues for success.
Somebody had to discover you. Somebody had to know who you were.
You had to audition for a talent agent.
- It's not the internet that made him famous.
It's his skill and talent that made him famous.
It's the internet that made him quickly famous.
- When I was growing up, they didn't have internet, you know?
And it was people that made young people famous,
word of mouth kind of thing.
- (FBE) Well, oftentimes, the internet will spawn memes of various trends
and then they'll go big and then they'll die out.
- Very definitely do trends die out.
- (FBE) But in this case, Mason went from an internet trend
and then signed to a real record label.
- Kid was fortunate. - (FBE) So his debut single
garnered 600,000 streams on Spotify on the day of its release.
- Oh my goodness. I'm sure my grandkids know him.
- (FBE) So with so many things going viral online
for different reasons, what do you think it was
about Mason specifically that allowed him to translate
that online success into a career?
- 'Cause he's been handling himself very professional, very well.
He seems to be level-headed enough to be able to accept it.
- Because he's so unique. Quite a few people I've seen,
you know, gone viral, they're doing different things
to be famous, but then they die off,
because they're just not that talented.
- Just the fact that this kid would stand in the middle of Walmart
and just couldn't help himself. You know, it was like,
"Oh my god. I'm gonna pay attention to that."
- (FBE) So finally, we asked this to the YouTubers when we shot
the Yodel Boy with them. So we just have to ask the elders too.
Will you do your best impression of Mason and give us your best yodel?
- (laughs)
♪ Yo-del-lo-dee yoo-doo-doo ♪
(laughs) I'm not good at yodeling.
- ♪ Yo-del-lay-hee-hoo ♪ That's about it.
- ♪ Yo-del-lo-doo-loo-doo ♪ ♪ Yo-del-lo-doo-loo-too ♪
- ♪ Yo-dee-yo-dee yo-dee-yo ♪
♪ Little sir echo ♪ (deep voice) ♪ Little sir echo ♪
- ♪ Yo-del-lay-hee-oo ♪ That's the only yodel I know.
Will it make me famous?
- ♪ Yooo-hooo ♪ ♪ I love youuuu ma-gooo ♪
I think I chased the cows away.
- ♪ I've got those yo-del-ee yo-del-ee
yo-del-ee yo-del-ee-oh blues ♪
- (FBE clapping) - Not so bad.
- Thanks for watching this episode of Elders React.
- Subscribe so you never miss an episode.
- Shoutout to Leo Moran and Taylor Owen
for commenting last week. - Goodbye.
- Hi, guys. JC here, one of the producers here at FBE.
Thanks so much for watching this episode of Elders React.
Make sure to follow us on Instagram, @fbe,
so you can get a behind-the-scenes look
at all we do here. Thanks, guy. Bye!