Reincke a viral race sensation
28/01/2021
Patrick Reincke has found a new calling, literally. His commentary of a ‘desktop derby’ race meet has gone viral on TikTok with over 6 million views.
TikTok is a video-sharing social networking service that is used to make a variety of short-form videos, from genres like dance, comedy, and education that have a duration from three seconds to one minute.
Reincke randomly purchased a ‘desktop derby’ at 2am one morning because he thought it would be fun for just $12, “A week later it came in and I was so excited by it that I figured I’d break out the camera, film a race and try to commentate it as the race happens and just leave it at that and I thought well I have a TikTok account so I’ll just upload it there.”
He uploaded the video at around midday on Friday, January 22 and it wasn’t long before it started to get noticed. “After ten minutes it only had four views and I thought alright I might get a hundred likes, maybe a thousand views I’ll be happy with that,” he said.
“At the close of business that day it had been viewed almost 50 thousand times and it already had five thousand likes, by the end of the weekend it had surpassed a million views and since then it has now bolted up to 6.5 million views, with 1.5 million likes.”
His race video caused Reincke’s followers to sky rocket, gaining 33 thousand followers in just three days, “Most importantly, I had 200 followers when I first uploaded that first race, I’m now up to 48 thousand followers and a lot of people commented saying ‘If you don’t make this into a series of races I’m going to be very disappointed.’
Reincke had dabbled in the world of TikTok previously but with little reactions, “I had made little snippets of videos that I thought were hilarious which didn’t get the reception I was expecting, so I think it just catches you off guard, the one you don’t put the effort into is the one that goes viral.
“The weirdest thing is to have people out there creating TikTok accounts named after the horses I have had run in these races, they are now commenting on these races as the horses that have just raced in them,” he said. “I don’t know who these people are, they have too much time on their hands but that said, people would say the same thing about me right now.”
He believes the nostalgia trip associated with the item has been a reason for the videos success, “A lot of people were saying that their grandparents or parents had it and that they played with it as a kid and they got a lot of fun out of it,” he said.
“Others are saying it would be a great decision maker for choosing dinner or other things around the house and a lot of young lads say it would be a fantastic drinking game; if your horse doesn’t place in the top three down your drink.”
“Also the Australian accent was getting a lot of people involved, they seem to like it… But a lot of people said the commentary is what makes it intense, if you watch some of the videos you’ll see I get right amongst it in those final few seconds… The top comments on these videos is ‘I don’t know why I’m so invested in this, but I am’.
“At the moment I’m just going to keep uploading a race every single day, people want more races but I’m only one man,” he said. “Honestly I did not expect it to go as hard as it did.”
Reincke’s TikTok account is @casadelreinckeraces95, where you can find a cruelty free and COVID-safe kind of horse racing.
