A laid-back skateboarder and his bottle of Ocean Spray cran-raspberry juice have inspired people to live a blissed-out life of "Dreams."
Nathan Apodaca, 37, went viral for the "morning vibe" of a TikTok video posted on Sept. 25 that shows him leisurely skating on his longboard while sipping from a jug of Ocean Spray and lip-syncing to Stevie Nicks' vocals from the Fleetwood Mac song "Dreams."
It not only has brought the hit song from 1977 roaring back on to the charts, it also has ended with the father of two from Idaho inspiring others to share their own "no worries" moment of gliding along to "Dreams" with a drink in hand under the hashtag #DreamsChallenge.
None other than Mick Fleetwood himself of Fleetwood Mac joined TikTok just to share a video of himself sipping some Ocean Spray and vibing to "Dreams" in homage to Apodaca, who goes by @420doggface208 on TikTok, where he has more than 2 million followers.
"@420doggface208 had it right," Fleetwood wrote. "Dreams and Cranberry just hits different. #Dreams #CranberryDreams #FleetwoodMac"
The popularity of the original video caused a surge of 8.47 million on-demand streams of "Dreams" in the U.S. for the week ending Oct. 1, up 125% from the previous week, according to Billboard.
Everyone from ESPN host Trey Wingo to the Phoenix Police Department to the lieutenant governor of Montana has since shared a video for the #DreamsChallenge while putting their own spin on it.
Ocean Spray CEO Tom Hayes also got in on the act.
The reason Apodaca was on the skateboard in the first place was because his truck with more than 300,000 miles on it broke down, so he had to ride the longboard to work.
Ocean Spray made sure his truck woes are in the past by gifting him a brand new, cranberry-red truck loaded with enough cans of his favorite drink to seemingly keep him sipping until 2022.
"Behind the Scenes from my gift from ocean spray today.... love the cranberry red," he wrote on Instagram.
“When we saw Nathan Apodaca’s video and the joy it created, we knew we needed to celebrate him and the happiness he spurred,” Tom Hayes, Ocean Spray chief executive, said in a statement. "Yesterday, Ocean Spray was humbled to gift Nathan with something of importance to him — a truck we knew he needed. What a thrill to be part of a movement that is spreading so much positivity worldwide, especially during these unprecedented times.”
He celebrated by sipping some Ocean Spray behind the wheel of his new ride.
Apodaca, who also likes to share his Native and Mexican heritage in his videos, was inspired to start making TikTok videos by his daughters Angelia, 15, and Makyla, 12, according to The New York Times. Now he gets recognized just going out to Walmart.
"I can’t go nowhere," he told Idaho's Post Register. "It’s movie star-ish I guess, but I’m not trying to be that guy. It ain’t me."
However, his most famous post almost didn't make it on there. He had just arrived on his board at his job at a potato warehouse when he posted it.
"I’m looking at the clock and see I only have two minutes," he told the Post Register. "So I watch it one more time and I’m just coasting. I’m going slow. And I’m like, man, I’m usually like going fast and making it look risky and whatnot. So I look at it, look at it, and I’m like maybe I should just delete it. I seriously almost turned around and almost didn’t do it."
Apodaca has gone from living in a trailer in his brother's front yard with no running water to retaining an agent and attempting a career as a social media star.
It looks like dreams can still come true in 2020.