Who the actual eff is Roy Purdy, right?

His basic details are as follows – 20, social media sensation, hails from Wisconsin, and at the time of writing had close to 1,4 million subscribers on YouTube.

His channel is here, if you feel like popping past at some point. Oh, he’s also rocking 2,7 million followers on Instagram.

So, to what does he owe the honour? Go on VICE, do some digging:

His success as an internet phenomenon, over the past few years, can mainly be attributed to his humorous displays of public dancing, as well as his brightly colored wardrobe and geometric, 80s New Wave–esque pink and green sunglasses, which he first purchased at a party supply store.

…Purdy first went viral in high school with his “#RunningManChallenge,” where he danced through the halls as other students walked to class. (It’s racked up 4 million views on YouTube.) The graduation video, “when u graduated af,” that he uploaded a month later has since received almost 6.5 million views. In it, Purdy, in cap and gown, dabs as he accepts his diploma to Drake’s “We Made It.”

Fine, let’s see the running man video:

Alright, sheesh, here’s the graduation AF video, too:

Yeah, this is what the teens are watching online these days. And porn.

More on the man behind the persona:

Without a camera in his face, Purdy is reserved, almost pensive. He’s not as boisterous as his online presence would lead you to believe, and when we chat, it’s as if he would rather be—inoffensively—someplace else. He is, in a word, shy…

He paints his nails and owns rainbow grills. He is pure, unadulterated escapism. He is the future: a walking, living, breathing meme in the flesh. He seems—refreshingly yet quite jarringly, given everything happening the world—perfectly content all the fucking time.

You know where this is going:

Purdy’s growing social media influence is, he tells me, ultimately an effort to launch a rap career. He has a touring agent, he says, but needs more material before he hits the road in earnest. Music has been his passion since he was a teenager, and it’s clearly no accident that most of the songs he dances to in his videos are hip-hop.

“I handed out mixtapes to my teachers,” he says, about high school. What he’s done on YouTube and Instagram to acquire a following, he contends, “isn’t that much different.”

There’s much, much more on VICE about Purdy, but the scene has been set and the rest is on you.

Let’s bow out with his most popular video to date, which has close to 14 million views on YouTube:

[source:vice]