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 .
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.”
@johneweatherall #MardiGras #Louisiana #CarnivalSeason
♬ original sound – John Weatherall III
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.
@cheesecakegirliepop RENT. FREE. #LinkBudsNeverOff #OREOBdayStack
♬ Thinking with My Dick (feat. Juicy J) – Kevin Gates
//www.tiktok.com/@sparklejoy101/video/7072799722204974382
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.
@only1barbosa #vibin #lafayettelouisiana #mardigras #kevingates The south just be like that:) #itsinmyblood #spicywhite
♬ original sound – Only1Barbosa
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.
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*First Published: Mar 11, 2022, 6:00 am CST
The video is simple: a man wearing a blue polo shirt, jeans, aviator sunglasses and a single strand of Mardi Gras beads stands behind a barricade during a Lafayette parade, lip-syncing and bopping along to Kevin Gates’ “Thinking with my D***.”
He’s not doing choreography or acting crazy. Yet in just 10 seconds the video captures that ineffable spirit of Mardi Gras. He’s got his drink in his cup, his song on the stereo, and Carnival all around him. What more do you need?
Mardi Gras has always been difficult to translate to outsiders—many associate it solely with New Orleans, and with Bourbon Street and "Girls Gone Wild" at that—but millions of people around the world have begun to understand the regional landscape and simple joys of Carnival through the work of John Weatherall III, a Lafayette-based videographer, photographer and now, TikTok sensation.
John Weatherall III is a Lafayette-based videographer, photographer and now, TikTok sensation whose Mardi Gras videos focus more on the spectators than the parades. PROVIDED PHOTO BY TREVOR 'HB TOOCHIE' JOHNSON ▲
This past December Weatherall, a longtime documentarian of parades around Acadiana, began posting clips on TikTok and Instagram from Mardi Gras 2020, to get people excited for the long-awaited return of regular Carnival festivities. It wasn’t just locals who paid attention: before long, he’d gone viral several times over, and by the end of the season he’d amassed a quarter million followers on TikTok.
Viral views
His video of Steven Barbosa, of Youngsville, rapping along to Kevin Gates has racked up 54 million views on the platform, garnering thousands of enchanted comments (“The flavor in this video is immaculate”) and getting reposted, remixed and parodied countless times.
In another Weatherall video to go viral, a police officer in Church Point dances the Tootsie Roll while on duty at a parade. In another, a group of teens in Carencro jig on the bed of a pickup truck. A woman holding a baby in one hand and a wig in the other hurries over to the parade route in Scott to dance to “Ratchet” by Boosie Badazz.
A police officer in Church Point dances the Tootsie Roll while on duty at a parade. PHOTO BY JOHN WEATHERALL III▲
“A lot of people have been cooped up since COVID, and they just want to see people have fun,” Weatherall said of the videos’ success. “It puts people in a good mood, lets them escape from the negativity of the world. A lot of people messaged saying, 'I used to live in Lafayette, and this makes me feel like I’m there, like I’m part of the party.'”
Weatherall grew up going to parades in Lafayette with his family, “and they used to film the parades with the home video camera,” he said. “They used to teach us kids, me and my sisters, how to operate the VHS camera. So I’ve been doing it for so long—Mardi Gras has always been a tradition for us. We love it.”
Whereas most popular representations of Mardi Gras focus on the paraders—the floats and marching bands—Weatherall trains his lens on the spectacle happening in the audience.
Keeping the crowd 'crunk'
For many years, he’s been riding as a member and videographer of Krewe de Krunk, a group of friends who ride in a number of Carnival parades around Acadiana. The krewe has several resident DJs (Mr. Fantastic, DJ Milez, and Big Leu) who play club favorites by mostly local artists such as Boosie, Level, and Mouse on tha Track—just the stuff to get hometown crowds to cut up.
And when they do, Weatherall is there with a steady hand—he doesn’t drink—and an iPhone 13 Pro Max to capture it all. “We just try to keep the crowd crunk the whole time,” he said.
“I document from the lineup all the way to the end. Once the parade rolls, I focus on the crowd, getting those shots of everyone having a good time. When I get home to edit, it takes me four to five hours to sort through the footage and put something together, like a recap video—a hype video.”
Weatherall, who works as a videographer for KLFY-TV, credits his best friend and coworker Gerald Gruenig with convincing him to start putting clips from his copious footage on TikTok.
The response was nearly immediate: in early January, a video of a man dancing with his children did well, “and it’s been going crazy ever since,” Weatherall said.
'Showing us, us'
According to Stephenson Waters, assistant professor of journalism at University of Louisiana–Lafayette, Weatherall’s videos are a new way of representing Mardi Gras because they’re “from the other side,” he said. “It’s always the camera facing the floats, but this is the opposite. It’s kind of showing us, us.”
More specifically, Weatherall’s videos showcase corners of Carnival that rarely get attention even within Louisiana. Weatherall filmed 10 full parades during the 2022 season, but none of them were in New Orleans. (He did attend the February second line parade of the Treme Sidewalk Steppers and caught Mayor LaToya Cantrell laying down some footwork, getting him another viral video.) Instead, small towns like Scott, Church Point, Carencro and Youngsville are the destinations making out-of-state viewers want to come see the Mardi Gras.
“Y’all people from Louisiana look like the most down to earth, accepting, most fun people in the country!!” said one TikTok user from Florida.
“A lot of people been inboxing me saying they’d love to come out next year,” Weatherall said.
Weatherall hashtags the names of the cities depicted in each video, and he also posts quieter behind-the-scenes moments, such as the raising of a Carnival flag in front of Carencro’s City Hall, or the crowning of Sunset’s king and queen of Mardi Gras 2022.
Laidback and fun
“A lot of people overlook the Lafayette area (in regard to Mardi Gras),” Weatherall said. “New Orleans is great, but I’m so glad to have a platform to showcase the area I grew up in. Mardi Gras here, it’s more laidback, more relaxed. Especially in the country towns, it’s just more fun. Everybody’s out there all day.”
Authentic moments of joy and humor can be rare on a platform like TikTok, which teems with creators performing directly to an online audience, whether through a dance challenge, a prank that may or may not be rehearsed or a makeup demo.
Weatherall captures the spontaneous moments that happen along a parade route, in which revelers perform for each other, not necessarily for likes and followers.
The beauty of Mardi Gras is as simple as is it ephemeral. “It’s people having fun, letting loose—a lot of those moments that we really wish we could hold onto,” Weatherall said.
Particularly over the past two years of loss and disruption, those fleeting moments are more precious than ever. “I’ve had someone say, ‘My friend passed away last year, and I’m so glad to have this memory of them.’ So being able to do stuff like that makes me happy.”