About

EJ Come, Water or I'm Telling You, First You Gotta Unlock This Thing refers to a series of videos by TikToker @freshoutent, aka Mr. Hey Now, where he gives his chihuahua EJ a drink of water from a portable dog water bottle. In each video, he unlocks the water bottle and says "first you gotta unlock this thing" then fills it with water and shouts "EJ come, water." The series began in July 2021 and the videos became significantly popular over the course of the year.

Origin

On June 30th, 2021, TikToker^[1] @freshoutent posted a video praising a portable dog water bottle that fills a small bowl attached to the bottle's lid with water at the push of a button. The video gained over 1.4 million views in three months (shown below).

On July 7th, the TikToker^[2] posted another video using the water bottle. He starts the video by unlocking the button on the bottle, saying "first you gotta unlock this thing." He then fills the bowl with water and yells "EJ come, water." The chihuahua runs over and drinks the water. As EJ drinks, he pans the camera up and looks around the park and says, "look at the view though. Woo, beautiful." The video gained over 19.9 million views in two months (shown below).

The top comment on the video with over 600,000 likes by TikToker @@yuh_girl_ally reads: "EJ🤬 COME😈 WOTTA💦 look👀 at😌 the😚 view😩 tho😍 WOOH🐶 it's beautiful🤩"

Spread

The original video inspired a number of Duets over the following week where TikTokers run by the camera after @freshoutent shouts for EJ. For example, on July 7th, 2021, TikToker^[3] @hennotchicken posted a video doing this, gaining over 10.4 million views in two months (shown below).

Mr. Hey Now continued to post the occasional video following this same format over the course of the year, helping him gain a cult following. On July 13th, he posted a video like this gaining over 16 million views in two months (shown below).

This video serves as the Original Sound for many of Mr. Hey Now's future "EJ come" videos. On August 14th, he posted a video to TikTok^[4] giving EJ water set to the sound, gaining over 54 million views in a month (shown below, left). He posted another video to TikTok^[5] on August 24th, gaining over 17 million views in a similar span of time (shown below, right).

On August 26th, TikToker^[6] @audreyymaxwell posted a video parodying the series with EJ played by a woman, gaining over 890,000 views in three weeks (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References