As the lunch bell rings, you race down to the cafeteria, rushing to save a table. While you sit eating with your friends and taking a break from the busy school day, your phone seems to be calling your name. You open TikTok and the doomscrolling begins, but your mindless viewing is soon interrupted by a surprising post on your For You page. The video is of a teacher who seems to be talking to their class as usual before locking eyes with the camera — then breaking out into a full-on sprint, charging right at you with shocking speed.

What is most surprising about the video isn’t the subject’s oddly perfect running form or the eerily intense cinematography, though — it’s that the video’s star is none other than one of Davie High’s very own staff members: beloved science teacher, coach, and club advisor Collin Ferebee.

A Star is Born

The story began on Friday, February 20, when, during his first-period Earth and Environmental Science class, Ferebee was approached by freshman Lakyn Reynolds and several other students with a unique request: to be part of a TikTok video they wanted to film. In response, Ferebee proposed a deal.

“I’ve been trying to figure out how to work with this first period… It’s a new class,” he said. “They’re kind of settling into the day, and some of them had made deals with me, like, ‘Hey, if we do this… can we make this TikTok with you?’ So I made the deal that, if you get all your work done, then the last couple minutes of class, because it’s Friday, we’ll do this TikTok together.”

The setup of the TikTok was simple: Reynolds filmed Ferebee sprinting across the room full force towards the camera. She then overlaid the video with the text “When the teacher decides it’s my time,” and posted it to the viral audio “House” by Charli XCX.

Reynolds, who found the idea while scrolling through her For You page, says she thought it would be fun to recreate the video. Persuading Ferebee to join, however, required some effort.

“I just decided to ask him, ‘Hey, would you do this TikTok?’ and he was not convinced at first,” Reynolds explained. “I said, ‘You will go viral,’ which I actually didn’t know that it would, I was just trying to convince him.”

And “go viral” it did. As of March 20, the video has amassed a whopping 6.9 million views and 826,300 likes on TikTok. The hilarious clip has received thousands of comments as well, the most notable being from verified brands, like Slim Jim, known for their unhinged social media interactions.

Ferebee’s response to this unexpected virality was a mix of both confusion and amusement.

“I think it’s funny. Like, I don’t get it,” he said. “I understand TikTok, and the algorithm is set up to do these types of things, but like, that’s a solid response.”

Reactions to Ferebee’s TikTok debut have gone beyond the digital world and into the halls of Davie High as well. When asked how others reacted to the video, Ferebee said that most of his students and fellow staff members were not surprised by his role.

“Honestly, as ridiculous as it is, I think people here were kind of like, ‘That makes sense,’” he said. “I think people were like, ‘Yeah, that tracks for him.’”

Ferebee’s fellow coaches from surrounding school districts also stumbled across his TikTok debut.

“I’ve had coaches from other schools send me screenshots of it,” Ferebee said in reference to the video. “That’s pretty funny. They’re like, why are you on my For You Page?”

Posting for Progress

While encountering a video of Ferebee while scrolling through TikTok was a new experience for some, the teacher is no stranger to the world of social media. On his class Instagram page @ferebeescience, he posts about all things school-related, including pictures from sporting events, day-in-the-life vlogs, advice videos, and much more.

According to Ferebee, the inspiration behind the page came as a part of professional development planning with one of Davie High’s assistant principals. During the meeting, Ferebee explains, he expressed his desire to connect with students and demonstrate the positive side of social media.

“I want to use social media to show my students and athletes that you can use social media in a positive, healthy way,” he says. “And it’s not just that you need to lose weight, you need to be stronger, you need to lift more. You can use it in a healthy way to show off cool things.”

Though the account started out small, earning just a few likes and views on every post, Ferebee feels that its impact has grown greatly over time.

“It started very, very small, literally, like my first posts…  they had, like, seven, eight, or ten likes. And now… for a teacher account, I feel like it’s pretty well followed and listened to,” he explains. “It’s really just me trying to give advice, and me trying to show off some science things, and what my athletes have done, and what we’ve done in class, and just trying to show positive things about high schoolers, and not just the constant ‘You should be this, you should be that.’”

Vying for Virality

Though Ferebee prides himself on his positive impact on social media and his students, he isn’t the only Davie High teacher who has gone viral. In 2023, English teacher Matthew Barker found himself in a situation similar to Ferebee’s. Interestingly, instead of sprinting at the camera, his fifteen minutes of fame came from a very different form of content: performing a TikTok dance.

Though Barker describes the event as “the most ridiculous experience,” when he heard of Ferebee’s more recent social media success, he couldn’t help but compare the video to his own — especially as his friend’s viewcount rapidly exceeded his own.

“I had the title, man. I had the title for so long,” Barker admitted. “I feel like mine required more effort, I’ll be honest. I had to learn a dance. He sprinted at a camera.”

Upon learning he had taken Barker’s record, Ferebee had a very different response.

“Yeah, I don’t do anything to lose. So that was my plan from the beginning. Shout out, Barker, second place,” he joked.

Despite the pair’s lighthearted feud, the two wonder what might happen if they were to combine their powers and take on the algorithm as one.

“I think that if we both combine our skills together… it would either do absolutely nothing and get literally, like three views, or it could be really cool, just depending on how the algorithm treats it,” Ferebee said.

It is this unpredictability that has continued to shape Ferebee’s own view of social media — not just a platform for viral moments, but a space where students can find a glimpse of joy and perspective on what high school is all about.

“It can be a really negative, hateful, terrible place, but sometimes you get things like me and Barker having fun, and that’s how social media sometimes can make your day a little bit better,” Ferebee said. “Social media is not always terrible. Sometimes you just get me and Barker.”