How kicking a rock made a UConn student a TikTok star
Afew weeks ago, Luke Lorraine was on his way to class at the University of Connecticut when he spotted a small rock. In his red Converse sneakers, he kicked the rock to class, filming as he went.
Lorraine, 22, quickly joined the ranks of other social media stars who track mundane but strangely compelling daily happenings. One guy eats a rotisserie chicken every day. Thousands check in on a crab some worried wouldn’t molt in time (she did!).
Lorraine, a Connecticut native determined to shape a rock into a sphere one kick at a time, has amassed more than 18 million viewers. He’s known on TikTok as @GuyKickingRock.
It was Kevin O’Neill, the bassist in Lorraine’s indie rock band, Wavy McGrady, who first mentioned that he’d heard it was possible to kick a rock into shape over time. And just like Mr. Owl, who was asked how many licks it took to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, Lorraine sought to find out how many kicks it took.
Lorraine has his own methodology: He measures the approximate distance kicked, evaluates the terrain kicked on, and rates how wildly the rock rolls about. When he first spoke to the Globe, he estimated he’d kicked the rock about 17 miles.
Each video follows the same formula: a red Converse sneaker boots the rock across the frame while a robotic voice narrates. The audio, though often silenced, is a selection of Wavy McGrady’s music.
This isn’t Lorraine’s first brush with TikTok fame. He went viral in 2020 for his resemblance to “The Office” character Jim Halpert, who was played, of course, by Newton’s own John Krasinski.
As more people followed @GuyKickingRock’s journey, some began to feel protective of the stone. Storm drains were cause for alarm.
Converse, the global shoe brand, took notice, too. The company offered Lorraine a brand deal and invited him to its Boston headquarters.
Lorraine believed he was proving the theory. “The rock is rounding out. The rock is progressing. I’d like for myself to progress on this journey, too,” he said.
But is it really possible to kick a rock into a sphere? I asked Lawford Anderson, a professor of earth science at Boston University.
“It sounds like fun, but it’s impractical,” he said, noting a rock would likely break before becoming a perfect sphere.
Within a half hour of my conversation with Anderson, word came: the famous TikTok rock had split in two.
Reached for comment, Lorraine said that he will memorialize the rock. Then he plans to find a bigger rock, and to start kicking that one, too. “Rest in peace to rock #1” his last post reads.