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A little over two months ago a viral TikTok took the world by storm. But it wasn’t Addison Rae or Kylie Jenner, it was a 37-year-old Native-Mexican man riding down the street on a skateboard, drinking Ocean Spray Cran-Raspberry juice while singing happily along to Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 song “Dreams.” That man was Nathan Apodaca. It was a carefree, blissful, and beautiful sight that 2020 needed. The video was even recreated by Shakira. It has been viewed over 71 million times on TikTok and has 11.6 million “likes” to date. The viral video completely changed Apodaca’s life. He’s been interviewed by Forbes, he’s meeting and working with celebrities, filming commercials, got engaged, and just bought a new house- which he paid for in cash.
Apodaca was born in 1983 in Idaho Falls, Idaho to a Mexican father and a Northern Arapaho mother, who grew up on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming, USA. He told the LA Times he loves to embrace both cultures. “I’m Native-Mexican,” Apodaca said. “I’ve always embraced both sides of my dad’s heritage, my mom’s heritage. Cholo all the way. I live it. I love it. It don’t matter. They can label me, whatever they want, but I’ll live it.”
At the time of the video, Apodaca was working as a laborer at a potato warehouse in Idaho with his father. In the viral video, he was longboarding to work after his car battery died. When the video rose to fame Apodaca had to start asking for time off to do interviews. He explained, “I was like, ‘So, I don’t know what’s going on. I have some things going on where I have a couple interviews. I just need to get this taken care of.” “Well, we’re proud of you,” his boss responded. “We’re excited for you.” A few days later Apodaca had an L.A.-based manager fielding his interview requests. He was also approached by agents. According to ConanDaily, he repeatedly said no to agent Gina Rodriguez of Gitoni Productions, who previously represented Alana “Honey Boo Boo” Thompson. Apodaca eventually said yes. Rodriguez told the Post Register, “Influencers go viral all the time but it is rare to see someone get so much attention for so long. We don’t think Nathan is going away any time soon.”
Apodaca’s nickname is Doggface208, in honor of the late rapper Nate Dogg. He was already building a following on TikTok under his user name @420doggface208. He danced, and road his skateboard, and just “did him” in the videos. “Everybody always says ‘do more skating videos.’ … I just do me, basically,” he told the LA Times. “And it puts smiles on faces. And that’s what makes me happy about it.” But Apodaca couldn’t have expected what would happen when he posted the video on September 19. Even Fleetwood Mac responded quickly. The band’s official Twitter account shared the clip not long after he posted it, with the caption, “We love this!” After the video went viral thousands of people started sending him donations on Venmo. Then he got the attention of Ocean Spray.
The video reportedly had a direct correlation to their increase in sales. On October 6th representatives from Ocean Spray and a local Nissan dealership surprised him at his RV in Idaho and gifted him a red 2020 Nissan Titan PRO-4X with a trunk full of Ocean Spray cranberry juice. The donations didn’t just come in cash or trucks either, he even got a fresh set of new $40,000 veneers courtesy of Doctor Aamir Wahab, per TMZ.
Since then Apodaca has been traveling and working in Las Vegas, Nevada. He shot a music video and commercial with Snoop Dogg. He told KTVB, “That was awesome because I got to meet and talk to snoop for a minute. The next day is when I got the Vivint commercial with snoop and that was awesome.” He also recently collaborated with The Big Idaho Potato Truck and has his own sandwich coming out Friday at all Fat Sal’s Deli locations. Apodaca is humble and thankful for the way everything has turned out. “It‘s crazy that all this can come from a video on TikTok,” he said. ”It’s been crazy, I’ve actually gotten work, I’ve been able to get a house.”
Besides the cash and work, Apodaca is happy he is just bringing some joy and happiness to 2020. Demi Lovato recently posted on her social media that “2020 started turning around when Dogface208 showed up.” Apodaca told KVTB, “Everywhere I go, I hear people say their favorite meme of me is the one that says ‘2020 got better after this guy showed up’ and to me, that’s just amazing and it’s just crazy and it makes me happy that people got a hold of the video and reacted to it like they did.”
According to TMZ Nathan paid $320,000 in cash for a 5-bedroom, 3-bathroom crib in his hometown of Idaho Falls. His love life is going great too. He just got engaged to his girlfriend who he met working at the same potato factory. He told KVTB he popped the question while in Las Vegas at the Nobu Hotel in Ceasar’s Place. “I sang a song to her, the Adam Sandler song, ”I wanna grow old with you” and I tried to sing it in Spanish but I‘m not fluent in Spanish so I just got goofy and then I sang it in English and that’s when I propose to her. To me, it was magical,” he recalled. Apodaca posted a video on TikTok of his wife revealing another huge present from Ocean Spray- a free honeymoon of their dreams.
