Genesis of a TikTok: the man who played the electric guitar by the lake


It’s a story of the web, innocuous as only our time can create. In May 2021, Kyle Davis probably didn’t expect to show off his guitar skills by testing his new amplifier in the wilderness. Nor did recreational fisherman Jayce Robinson consider capturing a video of the mundane event as he canoed across a lake and then posting it on social media.

An appearance at the water’s edge

Yes, but now, the buzz is often involuntary, a clever mix of talent, context, chance and algorithms. I must say that the video is amazing. We see Kyle Davis playing a guitar solo on the edge of the woods overlooking a small lake, apparently wild, and under a vermeil sky. Our amateur videographer is alone on the water in a canoe. In reality, this scene takes place in a fairly busy place, at the Peterson Lake Nature Center, near Memphis (Tennessee), where a certain Jeff Buckley died in 1997.

“When I tested my amp, this guy was there filming meexplains Kyle Davis. He then tried to catch up with me, but in the meantime I was already gone.” For his part, Jayce Robinson innocently publishes the video on TikTok when he returns in the evening; and heck, this one almost immediately went viral, accumulating a million views a few days later.

“I think people like the thing as a whole: the aesthetics, with the music and the little story behind it”, enthuses the one who does not take long to learn of the video of his wild performance via a friend. In all honesty and camaraderie, the videographer seeks to credit his actor by posting a message on a local Facebook group. “At the time it was pretty amazing, the reverb produced by the lake was insane, the sound was traveling across the lake and bouncing off the trees probably a quarter of a mile away”, adds Jayce Robinson. Proof that Kyle’s amp actually works very well…

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An unexpected little musical success

Kyle explains that he “dropped” the song on SoundCloud from June 11, 2021, where it now has an honorable total of 37,000 plays, an average of 185 times more than the other sounds posted by him on the platform.

On YouTube, recording Forest Lake Guitar Jam also making its way for nine months with 9100 views at the time of writing these lines. A success certainly slight, but which fills the curious. “Man, my girlfriend sent me this on Instagram and I don’t regret I spent half a minute looking for it (lol). You have talent, man!”, comments a user. Another blurts out: “I’m coming because of the meme, and I’m not ashamed to say it: but, d…de m…, you’re amazing!” A third indicates that he is playing the music track in the bar where he works, while a final splits with anticipation: “It’s going to explode.”

Still far from the explosion announced, the version of the video published by Kyle nevertheless accumulates more than 130 comments, where it is interesting to note that the influx of new listeners and commentators corresponds to the upheavals of the video on the Internet: there nine months ago, 30 days ago, then again for a week, when yours truly also got excited about this skillful mix of sound and images at random for an hour (lost) on Instagram. Meanwhile, Kyle has also released the song on Spotify, where it has racked up thousands of streams.

A quarter of an hour of glory, not two

Casual fisherman Jayce Robinson estimates his video has now racked up more than 5 million views, picked up and reposted by other accounts and on other platforms. The two actors in this naturo-melodic tale got in touch after the video went viral. “We ended up meeting and going back to record other content, but the subsequent tries got almost no exposure compared to the original TikTok”says Jayce.

Kyle enjoys being recognized sometimes, especially when he goes to play and record in this same park. He says he went back there a few days ago, “lots of people were watching and filming”that “all the fisherman in the pond went where he was playing” and that he has them “gave a little impromptu concert”. Despite this peak of fame, his musical ambitions are modest: “I just like to play and I don’t know what this story can lead to. It would obviously be a dream to live from this music that I love more than anything.”

No, Jayce didn’t catch anything that day on the end of his line except an amazing story to tell. For Digital, it was an opportunity to take advantage of the time lost on social networks. And for the general public, it’s now a nice guitar tune to save in their playlists.

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