*** NOTE: Due of the subjective nature of the subjects of this story -- and as part of an effort to promote a negativity-free zone across all of my social channels, DCBLOG has disabled the comments section at the bottom of this article. ***
BY DC CUEVA
Estimated Reading Time: 16 Mins.
Over the part of the ten years this DCBLOG site has been running, this ExtraTime series has afforded us the chance to introduce everyone to some amazing people who the stars of the MTV reality shows we cover here get to mingle with around this world of ours. And a frequent subject of this series has been of social media stars and influencers, including a pair of brothers who have been in the news quite a bit.
The younger half of this dynamic duo is Jake Paul, who a few years ago found himself on an MTV show -- but one that didn't air on the linear channel itself. In 2019, he had his big and much-publicized wedding night that crowned his now-infamous showmance with Tana Mongeau chronicled for the first generation of MTV's No Filter series on its YouTube channel. A year prior, Jake invited MTV king Cory Wharton's girlfriend -- Are You The One and Ex On The Beach alum Taylor Selfridge -- to play a viral YouTube challenge to be the last one standing in a frozen pool for $10,000, and she won. And shortly after, Jake scored his perfect match in another alum of an MTV reality dating show: Julia Rose of Season 4 during her battle for social media freedom from the World Series to the Hollywood sign.
Last month, the world of fight sports once again focused their eyes on the Paul brothers as the younger half took to the boxing ring for his latest battle as Julia watched from ringside. But as it turned out, the focus on that last December 18th night in Florida were on another pair of social media stars who found themselves center stage, and who are our focus of this latest installment of Someone You Should Know: The Bad Boys of TikTok.
A social media app that came out of the ruins of one of the many to come and go in this time has become one of the hottest things to emerge during the pandemic... and in some sort of irony, it comes from the country that's become America's biggest economic rival. In the spring of 2014, the first prototype of Musical.ly was first released, which gave users the ability to create and share short videos of them lip-synching to songs for up to a minute. Two years later, it had 90 million registered users and in 2018, that figure had doubled to the point that Chinese company ByteDance paid the app's owners $800 million (US) to merge Musical.ly with an existing application known to those within its borders as Douyin.
Ever since, what is known popularly the world over as TikTok has expanded beyond lip-synced music into something much more as it took over for what the Vine app did during its time in the sun: stunts, pranks, tricks, jokes, all sorts of entertainment and, of course, those those infamous dances that stretches from a few seconds to as long as three minutes. Around two billion monthly users use TikTok nowadays -- and that includes this one who only uses that platform for occasional posts here & there. Its notoriety raised the ire of both the Chinese government and, even for a time, the U.S. government and its former president... and in some countries, the app is not available for download due to concerns over privacy.
Like it or not, TikTok is now entrenched in our modern-day 2020's culture, which has seen it gain greater exposure in commercials, sponsorship and beyond. And the platform has produced a tremendous amount of stars that are too many to even mention in this post... and there will actually be a case where it will take one, but more posts to feature those times where it has crossed paths with those from the MTV community. But the first of these that are worthy of singling out had their moment in getting to hang out with the cool kids of the Sunshine State... more on that shortly in what was quite the end to their breakthrough summer & autumn.
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| Instagram @KodiyakRedd |
It's rather appropriate for that last mention of those naughty things that occur in the Sunshine State thanks to the "Florida Man" craze, that the strange things even stretches to what adorns the top of the brothers' heads. The "wicks" are a unique dreadlock hairstyle developed in Florida, prevalent among African-American and Afro-Caribbean residents and hip-hop artists who call the Sunshine State their home (Kodak Black being its most prominent), and which derives its name from its resemblance to the wicks of candles.
The beauty of today's music business is that anyone just needs to afford music recording equipment or a phone-enabled camera and wannabe stars can be good to go -- and if a track sparks that much buzz, it can go viral in a matter of seconds and turn the artists behind those songs into overnight sensations. In this case, Alex and Frankie adopted their respective nicknames, Flyysoulja and Kodiyakredd, when they first took up making music -- and their first track was posted to YouTube in late March of 2020.
But once the fellas rolled their phone camera by the pool in their backyard last fall, they posted the following freestyle rap on TikTok that, like it or not, became its newest hit... followed shortly thereafter by a conventional music video.
Once the first video was posted on TikTok over the long October weekend, the newly-titled "Island Boys" garnered over 12 million views by the time of its eventual deletion from the platform (it has since been reposted on YouTube which has since been since seen 15 million times). The track has been the subject to much ridicule and an immense amount of hate from the social media herd, while Snoop Dogg, Kevin Hart, Andy Milonakis and even TikTok star Bryce Hall have taken aim at the duo. The guys have responded in many ways from creating creative videos for overseas servicemen on everyone's favorite place to say "Happy Birthday" in Cameo, to helping a convicted criminal via video as well.
On Thanksgiving weekend, Flyysoulja and Kodiyakredd were invited by promoters to take the stage at Club Liv, the Miami nightclub at the famed Fountainbleau Hotel (and where Pauly D. did a DJ gig on Season 2 of A Double Shot at Love). It marked the Island Boys' first time performing at a major hotspot, but it must've felt like an absolute hell from the way that the clubbers gave them anything but a warm reception. As depicted in the TikTok video below, the crowd booed and laughed at them like they were nobodies -- and never was this kind of hatred for the Island Boys become more vivid... that is, until they went to the Paul/Woodley fight just a few weeks later -- and with one who just happens to be part of a group of Florida cool kids.
@izurp Some things are better left on TikTok #islandboys #flyysoulja #redd_4x #foryou ♬ izurp - zurp ⁶
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| Mike (left) with some of the rest of the cast of Siesta Key (IG @MikeAVaz) |
Two years ago, both shows aired simultaneously with Season 3 of the former being based in St. Pete Beach after its first two took place in Panama City Beach in the north, while the ladder also aired its third season in the show's titular location of the beach suburb outside of Sarasota and Tampa Bay. Siesta Key has seen plenty go down in its five years, with the many romances and other things surrounding the main protagonist. Juliette Porter, towering above most everything else. She and the rest of the cast have become pop stars in this small town, and they have also made some moves of late -- from the resident musician collaborating with another MTV alum on a music video to two alums of the show now helping to make our Mondays feel better in helping pull those viral prank videos on YouTube.
If one who watches every episode of Siesta can notice, then just about every week the clique is having a party or a simple gathering that could make us all feel jealous. The penultimate episode of Season 3 in 2020 saw the group come together to mark the launch of a new business venture for the resident gym rat of the bunch, Garrett Miller, who recently got engaged. But as it always seems to be the case, drama also followed them to Garrett's party... and if anyone watches what happens in the background, they can notice that one of those alums who now pulls those pranks with a certain Florida Man, Jared Kelderman, pushed into a pool a friend of the clique by the name of Mike Vazquez.
That fight came after Mike spread rumors that the former Navy man and 1/4th of the RossCreations bunch had cheated on his ex-girlfriend on New Year's Eve. And a week later on the Season 3 finale, he got together with Jules and Siesta's undisputed gossip queen, Chloe Trautman, and when he joined with frenemy Kelsey Owens and the queen's billionaire boyfriend, Sam Logan, he told Kels that Jules "might be in it for the wrong reasons"... and if what we saw at the end of the Season 4 midseason finale last summer is a sign, that premise might signal some murky waters ahead for #Jam when we return to town for the other half of this drama in the months ahead.
Those who have been consumed by the drama taking place in this beachy town know that Siesta Key also happens to have some famous fans, from Seth Rogan to Speidi and so many others... just as it is for the ladder's part of the MTV world of The Hills. The stars of the show have six-figure followings on Instagram... and it was in one of those posts that revealed the latest addition to that Key-crew of those well-knowns who've gotten to mingle with any of the cast.
That photo above of Mike -- who as his Instagram bio @MikeAVaz indicates has become an enthusiast in the buzz of the moment of cryptocurrency -- joining along for the ride on the private jet from Miami to Tampa came on the night of the latest ballyhooed boxing match involving the Paul brothers: after Logan's exhibition fight with Floyd Mayweather and Jake's knockout of MMA fighter Ben Askren earlier in the year, the younger son turned his attention to another UFC champion.
Like so many others both in & outside the world of combat sport, Tyron was one of the many skeptics of Jake Paul making the crossover from social influencer to boxing... and it was no surprise that before the fight with Askren a year ago, the UFC champ got into a backstage fight with Paul's cornerman J'Leon Love after being mocked for his boxing inexperience and after that devastating KO of his fellow Tiger. Jake immediately called out Tyron amidst the post-bout circus, and shortly after fight calendars penciled in an August 29th showdown between the Ohioan and the St. Louisan... and in front of the home crowd in Cleveland at summer's end, Paul recorded a split decision win over Woodley.
For his third and last fight of the year, the man called "The Problem Child" had been slated to settle things in an all-reality TV battle against British boxing star Tommy Fury, who fought on the Paul-Woodley I undercard -- and who took a break from the ring to finish 2nd in the 2019 series of Love Island UK. But medical issues forced former heavyweight champ Tyson Fury's half-brother to pull out from the bout, and Woodley would take his place in setting up an earlier-than-expected rematch a week out from Christmas. But unlike what happened in the Land, this second one by the beach ended early by one shot that put the champ to sleep, brought the crowd to its feet and brought about Showtime blow-by-blow man Mauro Ranallo's favorite catch phrase.
That devastating knockout with 48 seconds remaining in round 6 earned Jake not only yet another win but also "Knockout of the Year" from some of the boxing media who twice have seen their sport being invaded by the YouTube brothers. But before he and Tyron took their ring walks for the main event -- and while undercard bouts were going including one that matched returned NBA and NFL players Deron Williams and Frank Gore, the focus was what was happening outside the ring at Tampa's Amalie Arena -- home to the 2-time defending Stanley Cup champion Lightning.
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| FlySoulja with Cara (IG @carageswelli) |
After what happened that pre-Christmas Saturday night, that trusted name in celebrity journalism TMZ tracked down the guys for their reply to the chaos. The guys responded in part, "...at the end of the day, we want to be positive role models. There's gonna be grown men who want to hate on young kids like us... We're not perfect. We're going to try our best not to fight with people in public like that. 90% of the people were showing love. Just 10% of the people were doing a very good job showing hate."
And then, there's what happened after the fight: we told you earlier about that musician who got to do something with another member of Team MTV.... that happens to be a main member of the Siesta cast Brandon Gomes, who got to invite AYTO and EOTB alum Nurys Mateo to be part of the video of his latest single "Chop Shop," which adds to her impressive list of video cameos that also includes Cardi B, Chris Brown and Megan Thaa Stallion... and who also collaborated with Key queen Juliette on her JMP clothing line. In BG's case, he got to watch the fight there at the arena (a few of the Key cast were also at the fight as well), and then got to hang out with the Boys at the fight afterparty, which was also attended by a few of Team Siesta.
The two Instagram posts that saw Siesta Key and the Island Boys collaborate saw a few of the cast sort of stop and stare at their latest set of fans to join the Key crew (Jared calling the plane boy "Island Mike" and Sam adding, "That's a peninsula boy if I've ever seen one").... and even got a mention from a mom of a Teen Mom: Farrah Abraham's mother Debra Danielsen pitched in, "🔥🔥🔥🔥 love it. Enjoy 😉." And it also stretched outside the MTV circle in garnering the approval in the comment section of Team 10's former manager Adam Quinn and Instagram model Sofia Bevarly (both with 1M IG followings).
A lot of you can bemoan the fact that it has had a negative effect on a lot of us... but whether you like it or not the social media apps that you have on your phone has made stars of all sorts who are now everywhere. As was reminded by our subjects in that post-fight TMZ interview, Jake and Logan went through the same kind of hate that the Island Boys have gotten before the Paul brothers shut down some of those doubters in the ring.
But despite all the naysaying -- and them continuing to make headlines including a sexual assault allegation brought forth against one of them by a former girlfriend, this latest pair of TikTok bad boys are doing what they can to filter out all the hate they continue to get. The fact that they didn't retaliate at the madding crowd at Paul/Woodley II showed that they're not one of those who would pick a fight, and who are in this business just for the love of it while also staying humble amidst all this. And soon, we might be calling the Island Boys good guys as well.
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