The joke started without a marketing agency or a corporate pitch deck. Eric Lopez, the 21-year-old recording artist known professionally as Ericdoa, was streaming when he began riffing over an upbeat instrumental track. The lyric itself was straightforward, silly, and instantly sticky: "Imagine if Ninja got a low taper fade."
He uploaded the clip to TikTok in late December 2023. The algorithm seized it instantly.
Content creators paired the audio with distorted still frames of Tyler Blevins, stretching his face over stock images of barbershops and adding dramatic slow zooms. Within two weeks, users had created more than 150,000 unique clips using the sound. The appeal came from the contrast between Blevins' manicured, neon-dyed brand and the classic, sharp lines of a low taper fade. For years, Ninja's spiky blue fringe and branded headband were as recognizable to gaming culture as Mario’s red cap. Proposing a clean, everyday fade felt deliberately jarring.
Ericdoa capitalized on the momentum by dropping an official, full-length version of the song, racking up millions of Spotify streams and establishing a bridge between hyperpop and gaming irony.
