I don’t have my own Costco membership, but my parents do. As a kid, we made a deal that if I went shopping with them, I could get a chicken bake. While eating I would look around and not see many people had the same meal.
Years later, I still go to Costco with my mom and we have the same deal — sometimes the chicken bake comes before shopping — but I’ve noticed more customers eating them and I wondered why. Then I opened TikTok.
There on my feed was a father and son duo in a Costco doing the famous “We’re *blank* of course we *blank*” TikTok trend. The first one was the son — Big Justice — who chose the chicken bake as his go-to item, while the father — A.J. — opted for a double-chunk chocolate cookie.
How did this duo reach 56.5 million views on that video, making it the most-watched on their page, which has now amassed 2.2 million followers?
Your answer is as good as mine because I have no clue.
With that video, the “Costco Guys” phenomenon was born. They’ve created a range of content, including boom or doom, where they rate foods with a “boom” if it’s good or “doom” if it’s bad. Recently, they’ve switched it up by making the “boom meter” where instead of just saying boom or boom they rate the food from one to five booms — like one to five stars for normal rankings.
In each video, the father-son duo blankly stares at the screen and barely blinks, acting like a robot.
This has led to their main catchphrase “We bring the boom” which has now turned into a song. “We Bring The BOOM!” was released on July 3 and has 1.9 million listens on Spotify and 830,000 views on YouTube.
When you look further into their TikTok page, it’s filled with their signature dances to the song that has swept the world by storm — and even my friend group, unfortunately. While the dance is catchy and easy to do, it is getting too mainstream than what it needs to be.
Even athletes have fallen victim to the trend. Texas Longhorns quarterback Quinn Ewers, Detroit Lions kicker Jake Bates, Los Angeles Chargers wide receiver Ladd McConkey and even LeBron James — yes, LeBron James — have danced to the trend.
The music doesn’t stop there, though. The duo has four more songs, one would’ve been enough. They have a second solo “STILL BRINGIN’ IT” that was released on Oct. 3, thankfully with no dance attached, yet. They also have three group songs including their family and their close friends, The Rizzler, Jersey Joe and FaZe Rug.
Now, let’s talk about The Rizzler. He’s a kid who got famous off of doing the “Rizz Face” and has hopped on as the third in what is now a trio with Big Justice and A.J. He’s my favorite of the three because he doesn’t make me cringe as much as the other two do.
While I do see how the duo has pushed their fame to the max, I think the time is up. Especially now that The Rizzler appeared on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.”
I sat down and watched it with my housemates, and from the jump, we knew it was not going to be a great use of our time. Over the seven-minute and 28-second interview, the word “boom” came out of someone’s mouth 70 times, 10 “booms” per minute.
The first time that A.J. said “boom” you could see Fallon wasn’t on board with the catchphrase overload. Then at the end of the show, the trio got behind Fallon and asked him to rate the double-chunk chocolate cookie and of course, he had to give five big booms for it.
I respect the hustle they have with building their brand as the “Costco Guys,” but it’s time for them to hang up the chicken bake and double-chunk chocolate cookies.
My rating for Big Justice and A.J.? “A big doom.”
