Caden Woodall / Number 7 Guy

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About

Caden Woodall / Number 7 Guy is a football player for Michigan High School's team The Spartans who gained significant attention, particularly from those who find him attractive, in November of 2020 after a TikTok video of him and his team members singing and dancing to Justin Bieber's "Eenie Meenie"^[1] in the locker room went viral. He is currently up for Michigan High School's Football Player of The Year award, and is set to attend Harvard on a football scholarship in 2021.

Online History

Before the video of Woodall dancing to "Eenie Meenie" went viral on TikTok, Woodall had a number of articles published about him relating to the success of his high school football career. For example, on November 6th, 2020, The Detoit News^[2] published an article detailing how Woodall helped win a major game for The Spartans, leading them to the district championship.

On November 7th, 2020, TikToker rawrits.alex posted a video from the Michigan High School locker room to TikTok,^[3] in which the football team members, The Spartans, are dancing and singing along to "Eenie Meenie" (shown below). The first person shown is player number 7, Caden Woodall, who opens the video by lip-syncing passionately to the song. The video received 28.7 million views and 4.7 million likes in 18 days.

The comments section quickly began to fill with comments wondering who the "number 7 guy" is, many of them commenting on his good looks. Other comments refer to entering "number 7 TikTok," a sub-section of TikTok dedicated to Woodall.

On November 18th, HITC^[4] published an article describing number 7 TikTok and Woodall's rise to fame. On the same day Woodall started his own TikTok page and uploaded his first video,^[5] in which he and some friends lip-sync to "Eenie Meenie" while driving a golf cart around, followed by dancing (shown below). The video gained 39.9-million views in 1 week. On November 19th, YourTango,^[6] The Tab^[7] and MLive^[8] all published articles on Woodall's TikTok popularity, with Fanbuzz^[9] publishing a similar article on November 21st. On November 22nd, Woodall uploaded his second video to TikTok^[10] in which he begins by lip-syncing "Eenie Meenie" before changing it up and singing "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" by Marvin Gaye^[11] (shown below, right). The video garnered over 11.9 million views in 3 days. As of November 25th, Woodall has gained over 1.6 million followers on his page.

Reputation

Woodall has a largely positive reputation online thanks to his positive and catchy videos, his acceptance of going viral, and his good looks. Shortly after the video went viral, TikTokers began using the sound in videos showing their admiration for Woodall, as well as making duets to the video. For example, on November 16th, TikToker kendall.conley uploaded a video to TikTok^[12] with the on-screen caption, "someone find me #7" followed by footage of Woodall from the original video, garnering over 1.9 million views in 1 week (shown below, left). On November 17th, TikToker ppervertpeewee03 uploaded a video to TikTok^[13] captioned, "@cadenwoodall could run me over with a bus and I'd thank him…" featuring footage of Woodall, garnering over 3.5 million views in a week (shown below, right).

On November 16th, sydneycastillenti, who is allegedly Woodall's ex-girlfriend, posted a duet^[14] to kendall.conley's video in which she shows off photographs she's taken with Woodall, garnering over 6.6 million views in just over a week (shown below). This video helped solidify Woodall's positive reputation on TikTok.

Criticism

While many TikTokers uploaded positive videos regarding Woodall, other TikTokers began posting videos criticizing his success on TikTok, as well as Woodall as a person. On November 20th, 2020, Tiktoker hayleymadi_ uploaded a duet^[15] to Woodall's first TikTok video featuring the on-screen caption, "Imagine everyone on tik tok WORSHIPPING some of the rudest, disrespectful, and immature kids from my school smh I said what I said" garnering over 8.7 million views in 5 days (shown below, left). On November 21st, TIkToker jacksonarmpithair uploaded a video^[16] of herself to TikTok featuring the on-screen caption, "i can't be the only one that thinks this foo is ugly af" referencing Woodall (shown below, right). The video gained over 2.1 million views in 4 days.