Roughly halfway through the regular season, Otto Landrum leads the BU basketball team in rebounds and blocked shots and is third in scoring. Now, he’s famous on TikTok.

Men's Basketball

“Hi, Mom” Video Turns Terrier Otto Landrum into Viral Men’s Basketball Star

Overnight, the sophomore forward became the most recognizable face on the team, thanks to one goofy wave and a little help from a friend

When Zachary Taub stuck a video camera in Otto Landrum’s face as the Terrier forward was warming up before an early season Boston University men’s basketball game, he gave a goofy wave and said the first thing that came to his mind: “Hi, Mom!”

Taub (COM’26), a videographer and social media intern with the team (and Landrum’s best friend), spliced the footage together with other clips of the shaggy blonde, six-foot-nine Landrum (CAS’26) rebounding, dunking, and dancing, and then he set it to the rousing hip-hop track “Africa” by Slimenese. When Taub finished the video, which runs less than a minute, he uploaded it to Instagram. Landrum’s life hasn’t been the same since.

That was December 19, 2023. Within a couple days, a quarter of a million people had viewed the video. When Landrum checked his phone after landing back home in California for intersession, it had hit a million. By the next day, a handful of prominent basketball channels had picked up the video, and it was official: Otto Landrum was a viral hit.

His social media footprint ballooned from 400 followers on TikTok to more than 375,000. A month ago Landrum had fewer than 2,000 followers on Instagram. Today? 63,000 and growing. 

In a little over a month, “Hi, Mom,” has been viewed more than 30 million times on TikTok and Instagram. It’s turned Landrum, a political science major from San Diego, into something of a celebrity himself—in online college basketball circles, at least, and among the teams BU plays.

“I don’t know what it is,” Landrum says. “I think it’s just sort of me being an authentic person and dancing and showing that there’s a normal side to people in basketball, and sports in general, that people sort of like a little bit.”

In an early January LinkedIn post, Taub wrote that he’s still in shock from the response to his video of Landrum. Even the spin-offs are buzzy. ESPN reposted Taub’s remake of the “Hi, Mom” TikTok using LEGO mini figures on its TikTok channel. “​​It’s incredible to see how a simple idea can resonate with such a vast audience,” Taub wrote.

Product sponsorships and even merchandise have followed for Landrum. On January 5, Slice Sports Management announced that it had signed with Landrum to manage the forward’s name, image, and likeness (NIL) under updated NCAA regulations. 

“I want to still be a positive light, be my goofy self as I always am,” Landrum says. “But I also want to somehow monetize this so I can set myself up for after college, to be able to buy a house or something. So that’s my main goal right now: saving money from all of this and using it for future investments.”

A defensive specialist with a mullet is an unlikely pick to be the off-the-court face of BU basketball. On the court, roughly halfway through the regular season, Landrum leads the team in rebounds and blocked shots and is third in scoring, at just under nine points per game. He says he has tried not to let the social media distractions affect his game, even when opponents trash talk or target him because of his sudden notoriety. 

For her part, Landrum’s mom—a crucial part of the video’s success—has enjoyed her son’s newfound stardom, even dancing with Landrum in a TikTok video in December to celebrate his hitting 10,000 followers. 

But she didn’t get it at first.

“And then I showed her [the video], and I was like, ‘People really like you,’” Landrum says. “She’s like, ‘Oh, my goodness.’ And she actually is now very invested into this life that I live.”