September 25 is now an official holiday at Stony Brook University. It marks the day when one of our students embarked on their journey to national meme fame, from a humble dorm room in Tabler Quad.
The journey, involving Wonderwall, a red dildo, and an iPhone video has blessed us all and we are most thankful for its existence. On September 25, 2016, Romeo Barrientos posted a video of a student, who will go by the name of D-Boy, covering Oasis’ most notable single, “Wonderwall.” D-Boy has a nice voice, but the most pertinent aspect of the video was not his vocal ability. In this video, a bright red dildo became an integral element in D-Boy’s rise to fame.
D-Boy and his fellow suite-mates bought the object on Amazon after a room inspection prompted the idea. The original plan was to lay it around their room in order to freak out their RA. However, within days of its purchase, it became a significant object in the suite and was used for many different things (mostly ones that were not relevant to its actual purpose) Before being featured in the sensational video that would assist D-Boy in making his mark on Stony Brook and the world, it was once used as a refrigerator door handle and even a coat hanger.
When asked what inclined D-Boy to use the object in place of a guitar pick, he said,“There was no complex reasoning behind how it happened, I just thought, what if I used this to play guitar? At first, I tried to use it as a pick but after that failed I decided to slap it and it worked.”
D-Boy is a 19-year-old student at Stony Brook and was merely a first semester freshman when he approached his viral stardom. He is a big fan of memes, particularly the “Here’s Wonderwall” one that circulated the internet in early 2014. His goal was to expand “Here’s Wonderwall” in a different direction. It was a traditional guitar song and he only knew the first verse, which he feels added to the randomness and bizarreness of the video. D-Boy is confident that the length and sense of urgency in the recording process was pivotal to its success.
He went on to send the video in a group chat with his suite and shortly after “So…here is WonderWall” was posted on YouTube by Barrientos.
“Romeo is a master at promoting. He managed PR and made flyers for events in our dorm.” D-Boy said. “I sent it to my friends after a few days, not really thinking it would go anywhere. Romeo had different ideas.”
One thing Romeo had failed at, in this process, was receiving D-Boy’s consent for posting the video. He was intent on the video’s significance and shared the video to his Facebook page a couple of days after saying, “If this doesn’t go viral then I don’t know what will.” He had shared it several times on Reddit and even went as far as fabricating the circumstances for added humor. One post, that has since been deleted, said something along the lines of, “My roommate borrowed my phone and this is what I found.”
D-Boy insisted that although he was not informed that his friend had posted the video, he did not feel violated. By the time he found out a couple of days later, the video had already reached over 3,000 views. Barrientos predicted it would reach 5,000 views by midnight, but to their surprise, it had surpassed 15,000 views by 10 p.m.
The video came to be featured on the front page of the subreddit /r/ videos for days and was reposted to many popular meme sites.
“One thing I’m most proud of is that the video made it to ‘Know Your Meme’ and I can now call myself a living meme,” D-Boy said.
It also caught the attention of YouTube star Jon Sudano, who is most notably known for his covers of “All Star” over different songs. D-Boy believes that part of the reason it has received widespread attention was because of Sudano’s comment.
However, the video’s audience was not limited to millennials and meme blogs; it was viewed by his mother, father, aunt, and even his seventy-eight year old grandfather. His mother commented, “That was funny, but don’t do it again.”
The dildo’s whereabouts were unknown for a while after it was passed around by a fellow suitemates fraternity—where it was eventually used as a candle. But after President Stanley initiated a search team to locate the object on August 17, 2017, it was recovered. The red dildo is a Stony Brook treasure, and will be displayed behind a glass window, right in the center of the SAC lobby!
It’s hard to believe that a red Dildo could impact Stony Brook’s history and reputation in such an eminent way. Even if his dreams of becoming a successful musician never become reality, D-Boy will always be a musical prodigy here at Stony Brook. “Follow your dreams and experiment in college,” D-Boy said. “Don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty and don’t be afraid of job prospects.”
Editor’s Note: This entire piece is a true story. The only “Fake News” in this piece is that September 26th is not an official holiday at Stony Brook University and of course, D-Boy’s Red Dildo is not displayed in the SAC Lobby, even though it damn well should be.
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