Andrew and Eric Befumo, more popularly known as A.J and Big Justice, gained a lot of fame for their unique take on food reviews. A.J is Big Justice’s father, and he first started the social media account to promote his mortgage lending work but switched over to making food reviews after his son wanted to be a part of the channel.
Their food reviews include trying a product and saying “BOOM” while flexing their muscle if they think the product is good. They started to gain popularity after they reviewed a meatball product at Costco. After their newfound popularity, they started to refer to themselves as The Costco Guys. Eventually they started to primarily make videos centered around Costco. Big Justice’s favorite food there is the Costco chicken bake, and A.J’s is the double chunk chocolate cookie. These products became a staple in their brand, specifically the chocolate cookie because of the unique way A.J pronounces it.
“I think it’s funny, but their gimmick is kind of weird,” said senior Colin Tuttle.
As they gained more and more fame, the duo started to advance what is included in their reviews. Some reviews are called a “Boom or Doom.” If a product got a Doom, it meant they think the product is bad. Another new feature they started to use is the Boom Meter. This is a scale of one to five on how good they think the product is. Whatever number the product gets on the Boom Meter, the duo says “BOOM” that amount of times.
As they grew in popularity, The Costco Guys released a song titled “We Bring the Boom.” Their song currently has over two million streams on Spotify. The song now appears in most of their videos as background music. They later released another song called “Still Bringin’ It.”
To gain more exposure, the duo started collaborating with other content creators and going on podcasts. One of the most popular collaborations The Costco Guys did is with The Rizzler. The Rizzler is a seven year old kid named Christian Joseph who started a social media platform with his father. Unlike The Costco Guys, The Rizzler is the primary focus of the channel and the father isn’t shown much on screen.
“The Rizzler is alright. He’s funny and seems like a chill dude,” said Tuttle.
The Rizzler gained popularity due to a viral video of him dressed up as Black Panther and his tutorial on how to do the rizz face. Rizz is the ability to attract a romantic partner. The rizz face is a face that you can make by raising one eyebrow and sucking in your lips. This face is supposedly able to rizz up any girl you set your eyes on. The Rizzler started to show up in The Costco Guys’ videos after Big Justice asked A.J. if he could collaborate with him. The Rizzler has since become a big role in The Costco Guys videos and is synonymous with them. The Rizzler even went so far as to release a remix of “We Bring the Boom.”
The Costco Guys and The Rizzler continued to grow in fame, so much so that they appeared on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.” In the episode, The Costco Guys ranked a variety of foods on the Boom Meter and told the story of how they grew a following.
They said “We bring the boom” a variety of times throughout the interview, and Fallon’s expressions made it seem like he was annoyed by the duo. He cut them off multiple times and wanted them to stop saying boom. The Rizzler was silent throughout most of the interview, but when he did ask a question, Fallon dismissed The Rizzler and continued on with his own questions. Based on the interview, it seemed like Fallon didn’t really respect The Costco Guys and was just trying to get done with the interview.
“Jimmy Fallon was getting annoyed, which was pretty funny,” said Tuttle.
A lot of people’s main concern with The Costco Guys is that Big Justice and The Rizzler are too young to be receiving this amount of fame. A lot of child stars often end up having really bad adult lives because they were never raised properly, and the same could happen with Big Justice and The Rizzler. People’s concerns grew even more when a leaked video of the behind the scenes of one of The Costco Guys’ video shows A.J. continuing to correct Big Justice to ensure the quality of the video was at its best. It didn’t seem like A.J. was concerned about Big Justice in the video.
The Costco Guys have grown immensely popular this year, and they are continuing to grow their brand and gain even more fame. They plan to continue making content for their channel, but A.J. is planning to go into pro wrestling now that he has a platform.
