In September, a young man disrupted several lectures, attempting to sell hot dogs and become TikTok famous. As of now, he was unsuccessful in both endeavors.
This hot dog guy was the cause of amusement, bewilderment and frustration to bedraggled students. Students who, unable to express their emotions, flooded to Reddit to vent. Was this man for real? Why wasn't he working a real job? Why was no one booing him out of the room?
As the wonderful, thoughtful journalist I am, I decided to get answers. After a month spent looking for him, an afternoon chasing him down from the SFU mountain and 17 seconds of eating a very tasty hot dog (running down a mountain is no easy feat), I sat down with the hot dog guy.
How did you get into the hot dog business?
I guess it started when I was about seven and I went on my first vacation to New York City with my family. There were hot dog stands everywhere! Feeling the joy of eating a piping hot hot dog was something I wanted to share with everyone.
I had a bit of a turbulent childhood after that first encounter, but I was able to get a full-ride to university on the VWP — the Very Wonderful Personality award. At UBC, I felt obligated to do something a little more conventional, so I studied accounting. But that passion for hot dogs never really left.
As soon as I graduated, I got a night shift cleaning job and used the money to buy my own hot dog cart. My first time selling hot dogs was actually that time in September at UBC!
Going to a UBC lecture kind of seems like an odd selling strategy. Why did you do it?
It’s not so much of a strategy, more than it was a personal goal. You see, after overcoming a few obstacles and getting to university, I was sitting in a lecture one day and my prof used a hot dog vendor as an example to explain marginal costs.
Up until that point, I had forgotten about my childhood dream. That lecture was my flint. It was the place I decided to follow my passion no matter the odds, so going back there to sell my first hot dogs was truly a full circle moment for me.
So people should blame that prof for your actions?
Uh … I guess? I wouldn’t say ‘blame,’ but —
You mention having a tough time before undergrad, what happened?
Well, after that trip to New York, my flight back home crashed on a remote desert island. Both my parents along with everyone else on the plane perished, but my older sister and I survived. My sister got eaten by a saltwater crocodile and great white shark simultaneously, so I had to live off the island until I was rescued about a year later.
Oh, shit.
Yeah. Once I was found, they put me in an orphanage, but it burned down after my third day. I was adopted by a really nice noodle restaurant owner but she was severely wounded by a group of racoons and I had to be the one to take her off of life support.
Then my mother’s estranged aunt suddenly showed up and we moved back to her home in Australia. But her husband died of scurvy and she was too heartbroken to take care of me, so I was sent to the army for a few years. Then my best friend died in battle —
The rest of the tragedies of hot dog guy’s story are too tragic to publish.
Wow. That’s an incredible story. Um. Now I feel bad for asking the next question, but here goes nothing…You’ve gotten a lot of backlash on Reddit. Many say that you’re just seeking attention. How do you deal with that?
I got to say, Queen Tay Tay has taught me a lot in that regard.
“Haters gonna hate hate hate hate hate and I’m just gonna —” sell hot dogs. (I was hoping for a feature on 1989 (Taylor’s Version) with that lyric change, but she released it before I got a chance to blow up. Fingers crossed for Rep though!)
I know in my heart that the work I’m doing is helping people and that I’ve had to endure a lot to get here. A few unkind words aren’t enough to stop me … I’ve come too far for that.
If you were doing it for the good of your heart, why were you filming a TikTok in the lecture?
I was trying to spread the joy of hot dog selling. At the end of the year, I plan on making a compilation of people’s happy reactions from buying my hot dogs and just share an uplifting video with the world. About four out of every hundred people really get a kick out of what I do, so hopefully I’ll have enough footage by then.
The hot dog stand industry is a really tough one to get into, especially if you don’t have much support. I hope to use my platform to elevate my voice and uplift younger people to follow their hot dog dreams.
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