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A TikTok account that started as a joke, turned into something more meaningful for juniors JD Williams and Kolten Whitmire.
Created in late October, Williams and Whitmire began their joint TikTok account by merely posting jokes about basketball but they soon transitioned the theme of their videos into participating in tik tok dances.
“I think our first video together was a funny basketball video that Kolten posted on his account and we soon just became more consistent with our posting together,” said Williams.
Whether it was Williams and Whitmire dancing alone after practice, or with friends while hanging out, the two soon decided this hobby was becoming something they truly looked forward to and wanted to continue.
“We originally started the account just for fun, not really expecting anything out of it, but when we decided to keep it going, we ended up getting more popular, so obviously we wanted to see where it was going to go,” said Whitmire.
After some continuous posting, they had taken one simple video taken in our very own gym of Williams and Whitmire dancing, or more like jumping around, to the song “Bubbly” by Colbie Caillat, which received almost three hundred thousand likes, and just about two million views.
While the dedication and hard work put into this account visibly paid off, there was some original hesitation prior to officially creating their joint account.
“JD at first was saying ‘I don’t know if we should do this,’ but then, like, we both sat down and officially were like yeah we’re gonna do this,” said Whitmire.
If it wasn’t for Williams’ change of heart regarding the idea of creating a joint account, the account that is known as @JD_Kolton would not have gained the traction that it has today.
Williams’ hesitation behind posting was partially out of the fear of how the public and his friends would react to their videos as well as the possibility of unwanted negativity towards the both of them.
“I was scared to put myself out there, you know, people judge you because people judge and say things that you don’t want to hear,” said Williams.
This fear soon turned into motivation, where their continuous posting paid off in the form of a viral video.
“It was crazy when we first saw all of the people liking and following us from our Tik Tok. We were both really excited to see how many interactions we were going to get from it.”
While winter break has put a short halt to their posting schedule, they both are looking forward to continue their streak into the basketball season.
Williams and Whitmire’s journey from a lighthearted experiment to a viral success truly shows the value of stepping outside your comfort zone, where persistence and authenticity can lead to meaningful results.
“You’re always going to have haters, but you can’t be scared,” said Williams.
