When she missed her flight from Atlanta to Milwaukee after Christmas break, Kaitlyn Gould, a Marquette Law student, did not react with frustration or annoyance at the four-hour delay.
Instead, Gould decided to make a video of herself dancing in the airport.
The video, which shows clips of Gould in different locations throughout Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport dancing to Hall & Oates’ 1980 song “You Make My Dreams,” has gathered more than 300,000 likes, 58,000 retweets and 8.9 million views since she posted it on Twitter right before boarding her flight Jan. 9.
Gould decided to make the video after she put a poll on her Instagram about what she should do with her four hours in the airport, and the consensus of her friends was to create a dancing video. So, for the next hour and a half, she filmed clips of herself dancing in various locations throughout the airport. Then, she spent the rest of her time editing the video on her phone with iMovie.
“I posted the video almost right before I started boarding the plane, and then I turned my phone off,” Gould said. “Then when I landed, I opened it and it had like 1,000 to 2,000 likes on it.”
Gould said she was happy people enjoyed her video, but she did not expect any more response. However, the likes did not stop there.
The following morning, Gould woke up to find her video had more than 50,000 likes.
“I just woke up and I was viral all of a sudden,” she said.
Gould’s best friend, Amber Lizette, was equally stunned by the overnight fame. Lizette, a recent graduate of London College, said she put Gould’s video on her social media with a message to her friend, “Remember me when you’re famous.”
“I kept sending her screenshots. Like, I think I was checking it more than she was,” Lizette said.
Because of the high level of attention, Gould said she relied on her friends to receive updates on the video’s feedback.
“I had notifications already turned off on Twitter because my New Year’s resolution was to kind of stay off social media for a little while,” Gould said. “But … every time I would log into Twitter, the app would almost crash because so many people were liking my posts, so I had to mute it in order to actually be able to keep up with everything that was happening.”
Gould said she soon received so many Twitter replies at once that she was unable to read through them.
The video grabbed the attention of singers Daryl Hall and John Oates themselves, who retweeted the video along with the comment, “Impressive you can dance that long!” As a fan of the ’80s rock duo and someone who saw them perform live, Gould said she and her family were “freaking out” from the recognition.
Along with a retweet from Hall & Oates, Gould’s video was retweeted by actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who also performed a dance to “You Make My Dreams” in the 2009 film “(500) Days of Summer.” Her video was also retweeted by comedian Judd Apatow and liked by comedian Seth Rogen.
“Basically the comedy gods had given me their seal of approval, which is all I’ll ever need in life if I’m being honest,” Gould said.
Lily O’Leary, a senior in the College of Communication, said she agreed with Twitter comments that the airport dancing video was fun and had potential to brighten someone’s day.
“I mean, if I was stuck at the airport for four hours I would not have the confidence or the creativity to just … dance around and stuff,” O’Leary said. “I thought it was really cute.”
O’Leary has been a Hall & Oates fan her whole life, thanks to her mother’s appreciation of the band. Like Gould, O’Leary has seen the band perform live. O’Leary also said she loves “(500) Days of Summer,” so she had a lot of appreciation for Gould’s video.
Over the course of three days, Gould went from 400 to 25,000 followers on Twitter, and 1,000 to 11,600 followers on Instagram.
With her newfound fame, Gould said she hopes to increase her presence on online platforms like Instagram and YouTube. She said she wants to spin the attention into something positive for herself and audiences.
“I just hope people don’t realize that I’m not actually funny when they start following me,” Gould joked.
