Resident Canyon Zody, on Zoom, chats with international pop star and new TV talk show host Kelly Clarkson. Clarkson watched Zody’s video about rescuing a mouse on TikTok and invited him onto the show, which aired June 8.

Submitted photo

GNAW BONE — Canyon Zody will post a video on TikTok once or twice a day.

Sometimes it’s keeping up with viral trends, other times it’s promoting his parents’ business and his own workplace, Friends O’ Mine Campground and Cabins in Gnaw Bone.

Every now and then it’s also sharing fun stories and situations at the campground.

One video he recorded in January while on his lunch break helped him end up on national television.

It was the off season at the campground so he was working at Hills O’ Brown Rental Cabins. When he went back home for lunch, he found an unexpected guest: a mouse.

Zody ended up recording finding the mouse and making it a temporary habitat in a stock pot before he ultimately released it back into the wild.

He posted the video, which received more than 8 million views.

Within two or three weeks, he had gone from 40,000 to 150,000 followers on the platform. Soon he had an email from the Kelly Clarkson Show in his inbox, asking for an interview.

Producers at the show had reached out to Zody through TikTok, but he somehow missed the notification, he said.

They didn’t stop there, though, finding the email to Friends O’ Mine on the campground’s website, which Zody receives.

Once he saw the email, he thought it was a scam. But, he called the phone number listed and made contact with a personal assistant for pop star Kelly Clarkson who rose to fame after winning the first American Idol competition in 2002.

“She told me, ‘Kelly saw your video and she loved it and wanted us to reach out to you,’” he said.

What followed was an extensive three-week process of phone interviews with writers and producers as Zody answered a script of questions.

The interviews were hours long and consisted of phone and Zoom calls, he said.

The episode aired on June 8 and can be watched on The Kelly Clarkson Show channel on YouTube.

‘Absolutely insane’

Zody grew up in Brown County, graduating from Brown County High School in 2010.

He went to Colorado State University and lived in Denver before moving to San Francisco. He lived there for six years before moving back to Brown County in 2020 to help out at the campground after his parents purchased it.

Now he runs the campground, managing everything from reservations to finances.

He started making TikToks in May last year, finding himself watching the short, curated videos on other platforms.

“At first it was so silly, there were all these viral trends and I thought it was fun to make videos, I had no followers and no one cared. My favorite videos of mine are my originals before anyone followed me,” he said.

Since starting, he’s had five or six videos go “viral” — meaning that the videos have had a wide and fast circulation — but the mouse received the most attention.

He started making content about the campground, which he said gained a lot of traction with users on the platform.

The mouse was not a video he thought would go viral, Zody said.

He attributes that traction with people being concerned for the mouse’s ability to breathe, which Zody said was a non-issue with the paper-thin lid of the pot.

“I live in the country, I grew up in the country. If there’s a spider in the house I’ll pick it up and take it outside,” he said. “It was just like a silly video and it just went crazy. Such a weird experience.”

Zody had joined TikTok’s “Creator Fund” prior to the mouse video, where he was getting paid for the videos based on views, likes and comments.

Separate from the Creator Fund is the TikTok Marketplace, where you can market a company or their product, which cannot be left once a user joins.

Then came brand reach outs.

“The moment you join the Creator Fund your views drop,” Zody said. “When you get viral videos they want you to join Creator Fund.”

Even with 150,000 followers, Zody has seen that drop in views, only getting 4,000 views.

“I started to just make funny videos, it wasn’t to make money,” he said.

Despite the drop in views, some extra business at Friends O’ Mine has picked up.

Since joining the social media site and gaining followers and views, the campground has gotten reservations after visitors watch Zody’s posts.

This year, 75 reservations are followers of Zody on TikTok from as far as Illinois, Ohio, Iowa, Nebraska and Texas.

“People who think the campground looks amazing and want to come and stay,” he said.

One of the reservations they took was even a moderator on Zody’s profile, monitoring his live content that he posts.

“It was a little awkward at first,” Zody said of meeting a real-life follower and fan of his. “She was amazing, but the situation was like, ‘This is an actual fan of mine.’ It was super cool to have her.”

Posts on TikTok’s algorithm are also pushed out based on a viewer’s location, so Zody has been recognized when out and about in Nashville and Columbus.

A week after the interviews for The Kelly Clarkson Show, producers called Zody again to say they were going to switch which episode his interview would be a part of and that it would now be an “Animal Heroes” episode.

Again he answered new questions and prepared for his appearance in the episode.

By this time, Zody said he had the producer’s phone number saved in his phone, so when he received a fourth call, he answered them by name.

On the other end of the phone was a new voice.

“I answered, I said, ‘Hey Greg.’ The person on the phone said, ‘Hey Canyon, sorry, this is actually Kelly.’ I was like, ‘— Hi Kelly,’” Zody said.

The vocalist and TV personality told him that the producers and writers loved Zody and were going to move him to the “Celebrity Best Friends” episode.

Clarkson promised Zody that this was the final time they were going to move him, but the episode wouldn’t be out for a couple of months.

Then came the day of filming. Zody set up a station in the office of Friends O’ Mine, backed by a small decorative camper and a T-shirt with the campground name and logo.

“The day of was crazy, filming was crazy,” Zody said. “I had to sit on Zoom with (show) producers while her show is being taped live. I just sit there and watch all of it being taped. It was an amazing behind the scenes (experience).”

All in all it was about a six-hour process the day of filming.

The camera was positioned in such a way that when Clarkson interviewed Zody, she was talking directly to and looking at him.

“The best part was when she was doing my interview. You’re sitting on (Zoom) with Kelly Clarkson who’s talking to you,” he said.

Clarkson asked questions about the process of finding and catching the mouse, the choice in habitat and the process of releasing it back into the wild.

At the end of the segment, Clarkson shared a laugh with Zody and said, “Oh my god, Canyon, I love you so much.”

Zody said that he has continually repeated that portion of the interview.

“This is what I’m falling asleep to,” he said.

While the experience would be a fun whirlwind if it were any talk show, Zody said that Clarkson was already one of his biggest celebrity idols.

“I will literally die on this hill: she is the American Idol. She will forever be,” he said.

“She’s original … she’s only getting better. She’s doing covers on her show for fun and they’re better than the originals. It was absolutely insane.”

Watch the clip from The Kelly Clarkson Show here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZDss_o9jfM&t=104s

Visit Canyon’s TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@thegrand91?lang=en