PIZZA RAT

Picture it: 2015. New York was still open late. LeBron was still a Cavalier. No one knew what MAGA meant.

My buddy Pat Baer and I were walking home late night on a Sunday, dog tired, barely speaking. Monday was coming and nobody likes Monday. We reached the First Ave L Train stop to head back to Brooklyn and began our descent into the station. Suddenly, we look down, and right in front of us, the wildest sight: a rat dragging a slice of pizza, bigger than itself, down the stairs to the platform.

My sleep-deprived brain thought, “I can’t wait to tell my friends about this tomorrow.” Then I remembered: it’s 2015. I have a camera in my pocket. So I filmed the courageous lil’ maniac as Pat ran commentary in the background (“Live your best life,” indeed).

The next day, I uploaded the video as a goof, and within minutes, my friends are pinging me with: can I share this? Where did you see this? We can’t stop talking about this. By the afternoon, it wasn’t just my friends saying these things. It was strangers, then the media, then licensing companies. By the next morning, Pizza Rat had been viewed over 1,000,000 times on YouTube alone. From there, you know the rest.

Since then, Pizza Rat has inspired pop culture the world over: sketches on SNL; a cameo in a TMNT movie; animated into Pixar movies; beers; countless craft merchandise…there was even a minor league baseball team who changed their name and sold a ton of merch based off the video (sadly, RIP Staten Island Pizza Rats).

Pizza Rat has opened doors for me, and won me GIF of the Year at the Shorty Awards.

What’s next for the New Yorker who does big things with even bigger obstacles?