Whats thesong of the summer?
This writer would like to humbly submit another candidate: We Bring the BOOM!
We Bring The BOOM!
Big Justice and A.J. doing their thing at Costco.TikTok/A.J.befumo
Of course we go shopping while eating a chicken bake.
says he regrets his rating for Costcos turkey sandwich.
That shouldve gotten a doom, he says ruefully.)
tells me over Zoom, during an interview with him and his son.
We come up with ideas, we make a video, we put it out.
Its been a boom!
Everything At The Costco Food Court!
Starting when he was in college, A.J.
wrestled professionally, going by the stage name the American Powerchild Eric Justice.
(A.J.s son, Eric, was named after Befumos wrestling persona.)
People can say whatever they want: that wrestling is fake, that its scripted, Befumo says.
It beats the heck out of you.
It takes a toll on your body.
But it never quite gained traction.
It wasnt anything like what were doing now, Befumo says.
It was just for us to remember what we did, have something to look back at and laugh.
But it was a ton of work.
In 2022, A.J.
started a TikTok account to promote his mortgage lending services by appearing as a character he dubbed Mortgage Muscles.
But it really wasnt fun, he says.
It wasnt until Eric started getting involved that the channel really started to take off.
So I thought it would be cool if I was on his channel.
That video got 100,000 views.
And then my dad said, This is a father-and-son channel now,' Eric concludes.
Over the next year, A.J.
and Eric gradually built a small but respectable following of a little more than 10,000 followers.
That exploded in January 2024, when they uploaded a video of them shopping for dinner in Costco.
Its a star-making moment: A.J.
starts weight-lifting with two jugs of milk, followed by Eric joyously dancing with a package of Premio sausages.
The video now has about 7.9 million views.
We were like, Wow, thats what going viral is all about,' A.J.
Their followers regularly skewer their ratings system and accuse them of being too liberal with their booms.
Were not gonna give something a doom if its good, A.J.
Maybe we gotta start going to some worse places.
But it must be said that the Befumos appear to genuinely love the shit out of Costco.
When I ask Eric to explain its appeal, his face brightens.
Its kind of like an awesome warehouse with a great food court and cheap food, he says.
Still, the Costco adventure hasnt been all sunshine and rainbows.
We make a lot of noise, Big Justice says.
Im not gonna say we dont.
Were always yelling stuff like DOUBLE CHUNK CHOCOLATE, picking stuff up, throwing it into the cart.
appealed to Costco upper management, receiving an email from the companys head legal counsel.
And they were like, We love what youre doing.'
Most high-profile creators get a lot of hate, and the Befumos are no exception.
Who is your lash tech?
or some variation thereof is a comment that appears surprisingly frequently on their videos.
Its all a gift from God, A.J.
says when I ask about such queries.
Its the Italian in us.
(He does, however, cop to occasionally getting Botox.)
School right now for Big Justice would be a distraction for everyone, says A.J.
It would be a distraction for him, the other students, the teachers.
Things are a lot different for us right now in our lives.
So were looking into other options.
It was just a lot for me, he says.
Because I have to do my work.
It was a little bit scary, he says.
Because there was kids pushing, shoving, grabbing me, taking pictures.
To me, privacy is over.
In the world we live in, theres no such thing as privacy, he says.
Since releasing We Bring the Boom a 1980s hip-hop-inspired track that resulted from an impromptu car-ride rap, A.J.
The catchphrase has become so well-known, A.J.
Indeed, right before we log off of Zoom, A.J.
and Eric bid farewell on cue with a hearty, BOOM!
It is, admittedly, a bit of a surprise but truth be told, it shouldnt have been.
After all, they bring the boom.
Thats what they do.
They bring the boom.
They bring the boom to you.
