To hang out with an 8-year-old, you have to be an 8-year-old, or at least try to keep up with one.
That’s easier said than done when it comes to most 8-year-olds, especially if that 8-year-old is Gavin Thomas.
We spent the day with Gavin to better understand what makes him so special.
Special you may ask, yes, because unlike most 8-year-olds, Gavin has his own fans, nearly 500,000 of them on Twitter, 800,000 on Instagram and 1.6 million on Facebook.
He’s even bigger in China, that’s right, China.
On Weibo, their version of Twitter, Gavin has more than 2.4 million followers, according to his people, that’s right, he has people, that manage his publicity and his frequent trips to China to meet his fans.
"Everyone like my videos, and subscribe to my channels,” Gavin says before putting out an evil-sounding wicked laugh.
“Muahahaha!” Gavin laughs.
He certainly has a unique sense of humor and style.
Perhaps that’s why he’s now one of the most famous people in China.
He’s visited the country three times over the last eight months.
Over there people simply know him as the “fake smile boy.”
He can’t go a block without someone asking him for a picture.
You may be wondering why, or how this all started, well, it's like most things that gets big on the internet, it was completely random.
It all started six years ago when Gavin was just two years old.
His uncle would come over to spend time with him, shooting videos of their play dates and posting them on Vine, a video app that's no longer around.
Those videos developed a cult-like following online in America.
His uncle lovingly called them “Gavin Reactions” as a play on Gavin’s unique facial expressions, including his fake smile, his trademark expression.
Those videos brought in thousands of views, but it wasn’t until someone turned one of those videos into a meme that Gavin’s popularity took off.
Memes, if you’re not familiar with them, are humorous images or videos that are copied and shared on social media.
In most cases users will add their own text to describe how they feel about an everyday situation.
In Gavin’s case, people use pictures of his reactions to describe how they feel about things like the weather, their relationships, or even their jobs.
The idea may sound silly to some, but for others, it’s the perfect way to talk about the hurdles of everyday life, hurdles we all deal with, being late for work, getting a flat tire, or stepping into a pile of dog poop.
They’re common experiences that apparently even people in China can relate to.
Where language and politics still divide our two nations, one 8-year-old has shown us, that perhaps we have more in common than we might think.