Picture this: one day you’re just an average joe minding your business. The next thing you know, you send out a tweet that captures that ever-so-rare lightning in a bottle that’s called Twitter fame. That’s what happened to Brandon Kohler, a student at BGSU. 

“I honestly expected to get no more than 20 likes on the tweet,” he said. “I just thought it was funny and that some of my friends who knew my brother would laugh at it.”

The tweet itself, which has accumulated over 34,000 retweets and close to 352,000 likes as of Nov. 12, described what exactly captured Twitter’s imagination.

“The tweet was a screenshot of a text from my 10-year-old brother. He had called me to tell me he had a girlfriend, and then he sent me a pic of him with her scrunchie on his wrist,” he said.

This was not a moment he had been working for all this time, like many other people who have tweets go viral, as he claimed he doesn’t post frequently. 

“I’ve always been active with following people on social media, but I don’t post super frequently,” he said. 

The transition from “guy who didn’t post too much” to viral sensation has caused him to be seen differently by many people and be approached by people he doesn’t know. 

“People that I haven’t met before on campus have recognized me from my tweet. I’ve had people DM me on Twitter and Instagram from all across the globe. The tweet more than doubled my previous follower count on Twitter. I’ve made some new friends because of it,” he said.

As far as another tweet that could gain a cult following, he wasn’t too sure that kind of success could be replicated so soon after, if ever. 

“I have no idea how I could replicate the success of this tweet,” he said. “From the replies to it, apparently a lot of other kids are wearing their girlfriend’s scrunchies, and I feel like I capitalized on it before anyone else did.”