Going viral: 5 times people and videos from southwest Ohio went wild on the internet

Gideon General

In 2023, Gideon General, a graduate of Centerville High School and Sinclair Community College’s Culinary Arts program, received a lot of attention for his viral TikToks focusing on fried chicken, Filipino food and other recipes.

He said the idea to begin creating content on TikTok came out of a conversation during the coronavirus pandemic with Kali Muhammad II, his best friend from culinary school and owner of Slide Thru.

His first video in February 2021 featured a recipe for Hot Garlic Honey, a sauce you can drizzle on salad, burgers, fried chicken or pizza. He recalled his dad bringing home Popeyes chicken the same evening, so toward the end of the video he drizzled the sauce on the chicken and took a bite. He said someone commented about the crunch at the end, so he decided to make a fried chicken video next.

General recalled after an hour of posting it he had only one view and one like from his friend, but a couple of hours later he had 20,000 to 25,000 views. It now has 1.8 million views.

In January 2022, General said he quit his job of six years at Nelly’s in Centerville, where he served as a prep cook and line cook, to become a full-time content creator.

Josh Chasteen

Lebanon Junior High teacher Josh Chasteen went viral in 2021 after he posted a TikTok video on his account saying that if a professional sports team commented on the video, he would cancel an upcoming test for his students.

A flood of teams responded, including the Detroit Lions, the New England Patriots, the Chicago Bears and the Pittsburgh Steelers from the NFL.

The TikTok accounts for several league-wide organizations responded as well, including the WNBA, the NFL, NASCAR and the official Olympics account.

Chasteen, a health teacher, canceled the test.

The video has gotten more than 81.5 million views and nearly 196,000 comments.

Alicia Dixon

Springfield resident Alicia Dixon started documenting her Golden Retriever puppy growing up on social media a few years ago and ended up going viral.

Dixon, owner of two Golden Retrievers and two Landseer Newfoundlands, posts videos of her dogs three to four times a week on various social media platforms.

The videos have various themes featuring shenanigans, news segments and a favorite duck toy. Dixon said a fan-favorite is a segment called “Annoying my dogs by doing things that they do.”

Her videos can be found on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

Mike Mattison

Associate English professor and the director of the Writing Center and Oral Communication Center at Wittenberg University, Mike Mattison, went viral on TikToc in 2020.

He was teaching his class online through Zoom - when they had an unexpected visitor.

Mattison’s son decided to entertain the class by dressing up in different outfits and walking behind his father.

Lucas Mattison recorded himself doing this and turned it into a TikTok video.

The video has over 1.9 million likes on TikToK

Cincinnati Children’s Hospital

Back in 2018, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center’s Protective Service officers racked up more than 110,000 Facebook views, 3,721 shares and hundreds of comments just a few hours after posting a holiday video called “Can’t Stop the Healing.”

The nearly 4-minute video features officers, nurses and even patients showing off their playful side, dancing and singing at Cincinnati Children’s Liberty Campus in Butler County’s Liberty Twp., as well as its main campus in Clifton and its College Hill campus.