The Fall of the Backpack Kid

viral Fame is fickle 1 minute you have it and the whole world Can't Get Enough next no one wants to know you for those who Garner Fame off a single Trend or temporary craze the heart's realization that they're nothing more than a civilian once again when the hype dies down can be kind of hard to take and at the moment it seems like no one is more resistant to accepting that his time might be over than this [Music] [Applause] guy come on so how did this random kid go from performing on stage with Katy Perry to Saturday Night Live even getting his own dance in fortnite to having rappers kick him off stage and doing anything they can to not associate with him it's your boy Lua and this is the embarrassing falloff of the backpack kid and in case you're not familiar with how it all started let me get you up to speed born as Russell horning the teenager who had soon become the backpack kid had an unremarkable upbringing until he launched his social media account raised by his mom who had her own business selling bombs and a father who was a healthc care professional Russell originally made his videos under the name I got bars and gradually his unique dance moves and straight face delivery picked up traction initially it was a fun thing for him to do online and not something he imagined being able to monetize but when Rihanna co-signed him by rehashing one of his dances to celebrate her Grammy nominations he gained 55,000 new followers in 2 days from the start there there was one move of his that really stood out but soon it would become known as the flaw the dance it just really came to mind like I was just like playing around in the mirror playing music and I started dancing and then I started doing it and I was like wo this has a cool Rhythm to it and so I just moved it to Instagram even though the Rihanna shout out provided him with a little boost in profile it was nothing compared to what happened when Katy Perry's team got in touch and asked him if he wanted to perform with her on Saturday Night Live as during her rendition of Swiss swish backpack kid popped out and and made his presence felt soon after he was everywhere including major news outlets and social media apps Katie Perry discovered him on Instagram where he has 500,000 followers and that was before SNL it's called flossing he's a part of a whole movement of young kids and culture and dance that are just changing the way that things go and that's going do that in the aftermath of SNL flossing was everywhere and that's no exaggeration as time progressed this phenomenon spread to the football field I actually think that uh TJ Watt on the Steelers did it and then Matt Hollins from the Eagles got a 63 yard touchdown and he did it too but it was really Mark ingrams that really got my attention about back when he first did the move on Instagram Herer probably didn't realize it would eventually have its own Guinness World Record with 1,1 154 people doing it in Kentucky to take the crown but Russell Herer still wouldn't be a household name instead he would make the faithful decision to embrace the backpack kid moniker that social media gave to him and in an interview he told complex it was a conscious Rebrand yeah I'm trying to do my best in all the videos I'm trying to wear the backpack in public I'm trying to wear the backpack and while this move did seem like the best thing to do at the time his decision to take the name and run with it would come back to bite him down the line when he just couldn't escape it plus there was another major problem and that was the fact that when the world sees you as a one-trick pony there's only going to be so much of their attention you can hold before they think it's over or Worse cringe as 2017 continued backpack kid was everywhere but no one really knew why despite appearing in videos with people like black Yona loow yotti and others Russell reveals he wasn't actually into rap music until he began to chase the bag I wasn't really into hip-hop when all of this first started but then I started looking at all these other famous dancers and I was like okay they're all into this hip-hop form and this actually seems kind of cool so I started to get into it myself now able to earn the kind of money that someone his age wouldn't usually be able to get a hold of he began to embrace the lifestyle that his viral moment had provided him and cash in on it that's tight how much uh can you get to go to a club if you don't mind manager shakes his head now manager shakes his head no is it an amount that you're pretty impressed by like are you surprised that you're able to get that much money just to go somewhere compared to most 17-year-olds that don't do what I do yes the money that I make from just one appearance it could take a 17y old forever to make that much money was that always part of the plan yes been wanting to do music for a long time we just started to do it recently though cuz timing is everything in the music industry completely intent on crashing in as much as he could it wouldn't take long before the kid who said he didn't even like hip-hop was trying to become a rapper with the track flossen earning up to 18 million views on YouTube in 6 years the track certainly got people tuned in but the end result wasn't something that fans loved instead they just started roasting him for thinking it was a good idea this is what happens when you overhype the weirdo kid releasing a full ep in 2018 backpack kid had tried to use hipop culture to his Advantage but beyond laughing at it people really weren't interested and this is where the public opinion began to tip because while it would be hard to hate a kid for getting a shot at stardom the fact that he wouldn't let it go and became an irritating presence on all corners of social media made it a lot easier so with that the trolling began really yes I feel like you're more of like a beloved icon like people just think you're so funny to an extent but like have you seen my genius interview yes and I've noticed that it started to get a little ha okay yeah that one going pretty viral too I did a little interview and then yeah people love to see backpack kid fail did you feel like you got more support as you growing and that now that you actually are like really kind of mainstreaming everybody seems to know about you now is that when you're getting the backlash kind of yeah pretty much yeah at this point I'm getting so much hate for no reason like I'm I'm just chilling S I don't really care but that's outweighing the Love on my page comments wise M eventually users were commenting things like I feel like that kid really let himself being a meme go to his head in reality it's probably just an awkward teen who thinks everyone loves him and doesn't really know the right time or place it's annoying suddenly getting on the public last nerves with his attempts to infiltrate the music industry his attempts to get him the bag from the gaming world didn't go down any better that's because once it was announced that Russell was suing epic games the creators of fortnite for using his flossing dance without his permission he was suddenly in the press for very different reasons um it was really my mom and my management that did the lawsuit I'm kind of just a kid having fun in life I'm just letting the adults do all the busy work I don't really know the law like that so I can't really say if they're like taking advantage of me or anything like that but like from a mom standpoint like a manager standpoint they think that they're taking advantage of me I mean me personally I don't really care about the money like that I'm just kind of worried about my birthday tomorrow and I'm dropping this PE soon I have I have more stuff to worry about while Russell and his family acted like epic games was using a legal loophole that prevented him from getting a huge bag others began disputing his claims that he even invented the dance in the first place I remember girls at my middle school doing this in like 8th grade and no way did he invent that dance and think that was his intellectual property suddenly racking up L after L things were continue to get worse for the backpack kid when rappers began to see his presence at events as a nuisance because where Katy Perry once brought him in front of a global audience MC's wanted him to get away from dares for fear of people thinking they were associated with him for example ski Master slump God politely ushered him off his stage during his rolling loud set but someone who was less civil about it was a New Jersey rapper known by Alby Al after backpack kid was invited up during his set by someone backstage he let it be known that he wanted nothing to do with him I told him I only one on the stage they had all these I don't even know weirdos all type man and and you got fall back you feel me like I'm performing I'm it's time for me to work as the dust settled backback kid was getting trolled relentlessly for that and tried to shoot himself some bail during interviews claiming that if it was anyone else then it wouldn't be such a big deal so the guy that was promoting the event he was like get up there now get up there now so when I got up there I was flossing and then some guy put like his phone in his way and so I knocked his phone out of of his hand by accident so I knocked his phone out of his hand and he was like get out of here get out of here and I was like okay and I just left like we were still on the stage I just wasn't like right there in the middle anymore okay so people kind of tried to paint the whole thing as if they just kicked you off stage like nah [ __ ] [ __ ] that dance or [ __ ] this kid yes the thing about the internet is that they always want to see your downfall they make everything positive negative I mean that wasn't really positive but it wasn't really negative either like if it was somebody super duper famous that kicked me off that would have been pretty bad for my image but I mean like it it's really not that big a deal cast out of the entertainment world even when he tried to do the things he was known for backpack kid should have really heed the signs and moved on but instead he just kept trying to recapture the buzz of the past with each fresh attempt to revive his career failing flatter than the last and what he did next did not help his case in any way possible from learning piano to creating a podcast where he said he'd be discussing his experiences with mental health among other things it seems like Russ is determined to escape his past without going as far as to actually try and start over because deep down he knows that he would never regain those millions of followers when it's hard to know what's keeping them there now in the first place if I change my name right now the backpack kid will forever just be known for that Viral floss moment but I'm trying to reinvent who I am I want more and more people to realize what else the backpack kid does and if I change my name during this transition period in my life that'll never happen mostly dedicated to Tik Tok now that his YouTube videos Barely pull in a th000 views backpack kid just keeps putting himself in the position to take losses as in a recent guest appearance on Kat stream dusi and Kevin Hart basically treated him like a second class citizen what's your what's your name big bro backpack hereid huh backpack yeah I remember him I remember him I remember him he was here last time yeah he does he came over had popcorn he had a popcorn this time [ __ ] crazy want a Tik Tok what I do he wanted he wanted Tik Tok [ __ ] what he uh no he don't play [ __ ] he he do the [Music] floss cut this [ __ ] [ __ ] up get me the [ __ ] out of here stupid [ __ ] [ __ ] [ __ ] how you like it I want to hear no [ __ ] piano [ __ ] this 2024 [ __ ] the [ __ ] out of here with that J [ __ ] I like it [ __ ] ass [ __ ] hey bro you go go plac apprciate man alongside his attempts to play piano his new pivot where he tried to become a producer has also been widely critic with users commenting things like undrop this [ __ ] this is what not acknowledging that your 15 minutes of fame are up looks like regularly toad to just put the fries in the bag bro when he posts on Tik Tok it seems like everyone thinks it's time for the backpack kid to retire apart from the man himself and for the most part he's still taking an in stride fall off of the century that's me left trying to rebuild where there was never enough of a foundation to begin with Russell's obvious drive to succeed cannot be denied the only problem is that he needs the public to go along for the ride and by the looks of it most of them think that he should have remained in the past and find any attempts he makes to rekindle his brand as completely cringeworthy and unfortunately that's not a Viewpoint you can reverse too easily so while he may want to be known for more than that one dance move the chances of that happening are very very slim these days but if you're interested in hearing how a rapper can successfully make a pivot in a new career Direction you can check the video on the screen my name is Lua and as always thank you guys for watching I will catch you on the next one