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Lauryn D’Agostino, age 33, and her boyfriend, Devin Murphy, age 35, are both Litchfield County residents. The two have been together for five years now.
D’Agostino owns a marketing company and works with local businesses in the area. While she said much of her work has centered around Instagram and Facebook, when TikTok became popular, she decided she wanted to learn the algorithm.
So, D’Agostino said she set up an account in Murphy’s name to test it out. The account name is “BigDaddyDMurph,” which she said is a reference to a nickname Murphy’s teammates gave him when he was an athlete.
D’Agostino said her sensitive gag reflex was something her sister used to prank her about when they were young.
“At Thanksgivings and Christmases, my sister used to make the noise to try to get me going in front of the whole family, things like that,” she added. “Devin never really did it to me prior to this.”
However, one day Murphy asked D’Agostino if she would watch a video while he recorded her. The video was of a baby gagging, and it made D’Agostino gag too.
“He posted that, and it went viral, and we were in shock,” she said. “We were like ‘wow, I tried to learn the algorithm’ and this and that, giving out information. But really, everyone just wants to laugh.”
Some of their videos have received between hundreds of thousands to millions of views. A video posted in August has racked up 2.2 million views.
She said after the success of their first viral video, Murphy started looking for new ways to make D’Agostino gag, although she added that they only record the videos about once a week.
D'Agostino also said some people question whether the gagging is real or fake, but she confirmed that it's real. She said things like going to the dentist for a teeth cleaning and hearing the sound of gagging can set it off.
“I can’t watch any of the TikTok videos without turning the volume down," she added.
D'Agostino said while they receive some comments from people concerned about her and the pranks, she said that they’ve also seen very positive responses from people who said the video brought a smile to their face.
“We’re just rolling with it,” D’Agostino said. “We’re happy to see that we’re making people laugh.”
She added that she and Murphy have recently been accepted into TikTok creator marketplace, and the success of her channel has been helpful for her small Connecticut business.
“My childhood weakness has turned into my TikTok superpower,” she laughed.
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