If you attended the LSU vs. Louisiana Tech pregame tailgate or have a TikTok account, chances are that you spotted a certain Dr. Seuss character running around campus. Was he there to speak for our stately oaks, or just to participate in the revelry with Tiger fans?
The Reveille made it our mission to find out who this enigma was. Our search eventually led us to 24-year-old Jessie Smith, who arrived at the Parade Ground on Saturday dressed head-to-toe as the Lorax.
Smith said she and her friends were influenced by popular TikTok content creator Ashby, who frequently posts skits dressed as fictional characters. After a night of laughing over the creator’s videos, inspiration struck Smith in the form of a short orange creature.
“I was like, ‘What if I just went to the tailgate like the Lorax?’ and we kind of just took it and ran with it, and I did it,” Smith said. “Did not think it would blow up like this. Definitely not.”
To fully commit to the part, Smith ordered an overnight Amazon delivery of an orange bodysuit, complete with a fluorescent yellow beard and furry eyebrows. She then purchased an inflated ball from Walmart to simulate the Lorax’s rotund belly. The ensemble cost her around $50.
“It was, like, a spur of the moment thing,” Smith said. “I’m like, ‘You know what? I’m just gonna do it,’ and I just overnighted it.”
According to Smith, the campus’ reaction to her costume was electric. Tailgate attendees began flocking to her from the moment she climbed out of her truck.
“I kind of thought people would be thinking it’s kind of weird, you know, but no,” Smith said. “Everybody loved it. Everybody was stopping us to take pictures or videos and dancing and stuff.”
Smith spent her time dancing at fraternity tents and posing for photos with Lorax fans. However, she said after spending several hours in the sweltering Louisiana humidity, she was done. The costume, though hilarious, trapped heat to an uncomfortable degree.
Though the Lorax retired from his campus jaunt, his legacy at LSU lived on for several more days through TikTok. Smith’s friends posted several videos to the platform of the Lorax’s antics, many of which went viral. The overwhelming online reaction shocked Smith.
“I was so hot that I went home and went to sleep, and then by the time that I woke up, it was at, like, 100,000 views,” Smith said.
As of Sept. 9, the videos are still gaining traction, with the most popular having nearly 300,000 views. The comment sections are filled with praise for Smith’s costume, with one user even declaring that “the people yearn for whimsy.”
Fear not, Tiger fans—Smith says the Lorax will indeed return to tailgate again soon.
“Everybody in the comments is saying, ‘Please do it again, you got to come back,’” Smith said. “I mean, I will do it. I’ll do it a lot. It’s just the heat, like, that sucks. I definitely am going to do it a lot more once it cools down.”
What began as a silly joke between friends ended as a hit campus sensation that will not soon be forgotten.
“I just went into it thinking, like, even if nobody else thinks it’s funny, at least me and my friends will think it’s funny,” Smith said. “And it was worth it.”
