CAIDYN VOYAGE
4-yr.-old charmer rocks the net
CAIDYN BENNETT wants to sit next to you and ask what your Halloween costume will be.
He also wants to marry Beyoncé — but that doesn’t mean the superstar should show up at his doorstep.
“She’s my boo,” he told the Daily News. “I just posted something to Beyoncé, and I told her not to come to my house because it’s very far away. Why would she show up? I told her to not come.”
Caidyn is a 4-year-old internet sensation whose hilarious homemade videos have gone viral and spawned a series of instant hashtags.
His most popular video, “No Susan, Those Are Dreads,” exploded with millions of Instagram views thanks to reposts by social media influencers Fro Babies, The Shade Room and IAmZoie.
In the “No Susan” video, Caidyn uses his offthe-charts charm to deliver the important life lesson that dreadlocks are not braids — and they’re not to be touched or petted.
“You know what I hate the most? I hate when I’m with my mommy and people see me, and they’re like ‘Ohhhh, are those braids?’ No Susan, those are dreads!” he says in his pint-sized but powerful voice.
“You don’t touch a black man’s hair!” he explains.
“And they’re always like, ‘Ohhhh, I want my hair like that.’ Do you Sandy? Do you really?” he questions.
“I’m pretty sure he got the name Sandy from SpongeBob,” Caidyn’s dad Devonte Bennett, a 23-year-old U.S. Marine who now works at SpaceX building rocket thruster systems, told The News.
Indeed, when asked what he wants to be when he grows up, Caidyn named another character from the popular Nickelodeon series “SpongeBob SquarePants.”
“I want to be Mr. Krabs,” he said before transitioning into a discussion about Halloween, polite questions about everyone’s costume plans and an impromptu skit about vampires.
Caidyn’s mom Destiny Bennett, 25, said it took all of five minutes to make the now famous “No Susan” video.
The Southern California family recently lived in Arizona — where Devonte was stationed after a tour in Bahrain supporting Operation Inherent Resolve.
And Destiny regularly takes videos of Caidyn describing his life’s adventures. A fine-art photographer by trade, she knew she had something special with the “No Susan” story.
The popular Instagram account Fro Babies posted it last weekend. It snowballed from there, leading to nearly a million views from a repost on The Shade Room’s Instagram account. A tribute video from YouTube star Zoie Fenty also hit big with close to a million Instagram views.
“I want him to be able to have something from this, take something away for the future,” Devonte Bennett said. “If it’s only 15 minutes of fame, fine. But if we can get him a brand and a platform, that would be great.”
The family trademarked the Susan and Sandy catchphrases Friday and planned to speak with a lawyer soon about third parties who try to monetize the video without consent.
They also started their own YouTube channel and are selling T-shirts online now with plans to launch a larger clothing line early next year.
Still, Caidyn doesn’t even have an agent yet, and the family is in no particular rush.
“He sells himself. You just give him a topic, and he goes,” Devonte Bennett said.
“He started talking at 9 months old and hasn’t stopped since,” Destiny Bennett said with a laugh.