Joe Byron

Confirmed 87,630

Part of a series on Sidetalk. [View Related Entries]

About

Joe Byron, also identifiable as Fuck Ya Life, Bing Bong, refers to a viral video, TikTok sound and lip-dub trend that originated from a Sidetalk NYC video posted to YouTube, TikTok and Instagram in September 2021. Although "Joe Byron" had been shouted and emphasized in a precursor Sidetalk video from April 2021, it wasn't until a September video, and other various reposts of it on TikTok in October 2021, that the audio started being exploited en masse on the platform. As a summary, the video showed New York City residents in Coney Island shouting different catchphrases at the camera like Bing Bong. One man, in particular, shouted "Joe Byron!" as a butchering of Joe Biden's name.

Origin

Precursor Videos

The shirtless man in the Sidetalk NYC video that shouts "Joe Byron" first did so in a precursor video posted in April 2021 to all of Sidetalk's social media pages. The video on YouTube^[1] is titled "Coney Island's Finest" (shown below). It was uploaded to the platform on April 10th, 2021, and received roughly 1 million views over eight months. The same video was posted to TikTok^[2] the following day, where it received roughly 4.5 million plays and 556,700 likes over eight months. The caption of the TikTok reads, "PRESIDENT BYRON 🇺🇸✨."

Another video that featured the same man saying "Joe Byron" was posted to Sidetalk's pages in July 2021. On YouTube^[3] the video is titled "Coney Island Glizzy Eating Contest" (shown below) and it was posted on July 4th, 2021. Over the course of five months, the video amassed roughly 743,000 views. A month later, on August 13th, the first minute of the clip was uploaded to TikTok^[4] as its own video. There, it received roughly 7.6 million plays and 991,400 likes over four months.

Fuck Ya Life, Bing Bong / Joe Byron, Take Me Out To Dinner

On September 10th, 2021, Sidetalk posted a video to their YouTube^[5] titled "Coney Island Ski Club" that became the source of the most viral instance of the shirtless man shouting "Byron!" among other catchphrases said in the video. For instance, another man in the video gave the middle finger to the camera while still sitting in his car and said, "Fuck ya life! Bing Bong!" The video (shown below) amassed roughly 2.5 million views over three months. Additionally, Sidetalk posted a snippet of the video to their TikTok^[6] the same day, specifically the moment when the shirtless man shouted "YESSIR‼️" while standing under a spouting fire hydrant. The TikTok received roughly 2.4 million plays over four months.

Spread

Although the above video was posted in September 2021, it wasn't until reposts of it were posted to TikTok in late October that the lip-dub trend started taking off. The first TikTok^[7] repost of the September video was uploaded by @big_hemi1 to the platform on October 23rd, 2021 (shown below). The TikTok, over the course of a month and a half, received roughly 19.8 million plays and 3.4 million likes.

Fuck ya life! Bing Bong! / If you see these dogs in your front yard, just know upstairs I'm goin' hard. Bing Bong. / What do you wanna tell Joe Byron right now? / What's up, baby? Take me out to dinner. / Ay, yo!

In mid-November 2021, TikTokers started using the audio from the above video as an original sound. The first TikToker to do so was @holaitshenry, who posted a video^[8] on November 12th, 2021, that featured him and his friends lip-dubbing the audio (shown below). Over the course of three weeks, the video amassed roughly 1.2 million plays and 246,200 likes.

On November 15th, 2021, TikToker^[9] @parchaking7 posted the first known variant of the above video. In his video (shown below, left) he also lip-dubbed the audio, recreating the movements and the body language of the characters within the video as well. Additionally, he jumps up and kicks his legs out when the audio says, "Bing Bong!" His TikTok received 3.5 million plays and 693,100 likes in three weeks' time. Other TikTokers mimicked his flamboyant recreation of the video in the days following, like TikToker^[10] @justremyy who also jumped up when the audio said "Bing Bong!" in his video (shown below, right).

Going into the rest of November 2021, the audio continued to gain traction on the platform. On November 18th, 2021, the Sidetalk host of the original video, known as GORILLA NEMS, used the audio to recreate the iconic "Coney Island Ski Club" video with the people from the actual video. His TikTok^[11] (shown below) received roughly 27.1 million plays and 5.1 million likes in less than one month.

In late November 2021, Sidetalk revisited Coney Island to make another YouTube^[12] video titled, "A Coney Island Thanksgiving," that they posted on November 25th, 2021 (shown below). The video gained roughly 903,000 views in just seven days. It was also posted to TikTok^[13] on the same day, where it received roughly 11.5 million plays and 1.6 million likes in the same amount of time.

On December 2nd, 2021, TikToker^[16] @zoeanneliece posted a video that revealed the name of the shirtless man who says "Joe Byron" in the videos: TJ. In the video (shown below) TJ asked the camera, "Why am I homeless?" The video received roughly 3.4 million plays in less than 24 hours. Additionally, @zoeanneliece posted a link in her bio to a GoFundMe^[17] campaign to help TJ get off the streets.

Overall, the "Joe Byron" trend stayed mostly on TikTok, with various TikTokers using the audio of the man's raspy voice. Awareness of the trend also spread to Twitter in late November 2021,^[14] where Twitter users joked about, among other things, how glad they were that they, "not in school no more," so they don't have to, "hear 'bing bong' and Joe Byron all day." ^[15]