Meet this week’s Campus Celebrity, Ryan Brainard, the guy who got Aggies to “Shake it Off!” With over 400k views on YouTube, his video has made its rounds around Facebook and other social media. If you haven’t already, you can check it out here! Read more about the mastermind and how this video came to be:
HC: Where are you from, and what is your major?
RB: I am from Pflugerville Texas, and my major is Electronic Systems Engineering Technologies.
HC: What made you choose A&M?
RB: I came to campus one day during my senior year and was immediately hooked! I was originally going to go to UT
HC: What is your dream job?
RB: My dream job would be to entertain people with videos, like on Youtube, but if not that, working as a developer for missile systems would be fun.
HC: What’s an interesting fact about you?
RB: I love anything from Pokemon, to Taylor Swift, to Metal Music! And I play the guitar/sing sometimes. I also make gaming videos on my channel, which I love doing!
HC: What inspired you to create the video?
RB: I did one like this for my high school to Jay-Z’s “dirt off your shoulder” and thought I should do another one.
HC: How long did it take you to put together the video?
RB: It took a full day. We filmed and edited all in one day, but it was worth the effort!
HC: Why “Shake it Off?”
RB: The song was originally going to be “Fancy” by Iggy Azaela. But I was in the car listening to “Shake it Off”, and it just fit the theme I wanted the video to have more.
HC: How did you get people to dance? Was it hard?
RB: Mostly by asking groups of people to do it, then their friends would throw them under the bus and make them dance! It was pretty difficult.
HC: Did you participate in the video?
RB: Yes, I did multiple times actually because a lot of people didn’t want to dance alone, I did it with them so that they wouldn’t be embarrassed.
HC: Do you like to dance?
RB: I like to dance as long as it’s not in a serious setting. I like to have fun!
HC: Do you think you might do something like this again?
RB: We already did a second video which hit 4k views, which is what we had originally hoped the first one would hit! The first one hitting 400k is like a dream come true!