Words by Scott Connor

The curtain has been pulled back and we’ve got an exclusive interview with Dustin Lee, the man behind Rodeo Peanut. Is it real? Was the big reveal all just a ploy? Maybe there are more secrets but we hit up Dustin for his thoughts on the whole thing.

– Dustin, before we get into the juicy stuff – Introduce yourself, where do you live and what do you do?

“My name is Dustin Lee. I’m from a small town in New Jersey (right outside of New York City). I was working as an Applications Developer for the past 2 years up until recently because it was driving me insane. So most people will call me a professional bum. But I guess you can say I’m an aspiring YouTuber and a full-time meme creator for @costanzagrams (a Seinfeld meme account).”

– How did you get started down the path to becoming internet infamous? Obviously you didn’t create Rodeo Peanut, right? Can you breakdown the process and give us a rough timeline on the happenings?
(If you don’t want to mention names, feel free to use pseudonyms & aliases)

“Haha infamous… Yeah, I didn’t want to bore people to death in my last video of every single detail, but I will break it down here as best as I can.

“Kinda like how Skavenger first started with Edwin DeLaRosa, Vinnie Sammon and Vic Ayala, I always thought Rodeo Peanut was pretty much the complete opposite of that.”

I am certainly NOT the original creator behind the Rodeo Peanut name. Everyone ‘in the know’ knows who that is and that person deserves the credit for the ridiculous/funny name. I believe it was first created around 1999-2000 by the ‘creator’ just as a random funny name for this crew of riders in the New Brunswick, NJ area. Kinda like how Skavenger first started with Edwin DeLaRosa, Vinnie Sammon and Vic Ayala, I always thought Rodeo Peanut was pretty much the complete opposite of that.

Basically, a group of guys that didn’t take anything too seriously, loved BMX, but would give each other shit by coming up with ‘rules’ as a way to call BS on stuff but in a fun way. I wasn’t part of this crew at the time. I rode with most of them on and off back then. I didn’t live too close, was busy with school/work and wasn’t riding that much so I didn’t get to see them often, but heard of many of the antics they did.

The first major thing I heard about was when they got some pro riders’ cell phone numbers and would prank call them non-stop haha. And they guessed correctly on some pro’s voicemail passwords (4130 – everyone used this at the time) and changed the message to something ridiculous.

Around 2006, they were filming for a DVD/mixtape thing and it was straight BMX riding for the most part and consisted of local spots and some road trips. Not really sure on any details up to the Instagram account.

In 2014, one of them decided to start an Instagram account to carry the joking onto social media. It first started off as mostly inside jokes consisting of MSpaint style memes or superimposing people’s faces onto images. Soon they started making fun of people like Adam22, Nigel/Pyradice, etc.

“I pretty much have Seinfeld memorised in my brain, so any situation that would pop up, I would try to think of any way to make it Seinfeld relatable. And that applied to ABDs, 1-ups, Indian givers, anything.”

My first submission that I recall (I think I was actually working on it together with one of them) was a Seinfeld related post. Basically when the “comb over hairdo” (I don’t know the actual name of the hair style), was becoming very popular in BMX. And it looked exactly like Jerry’s hair when he got a really bad hair cut. Everyone involved in RP was a Seinfeld fan so they all got a kick outta those. I pretty much have Seinfeld memorised in my brain, so any situation that would pop up, I would try to think of any way to make it Seinfeld relatable. And that applied to ABDs, 1-ups, Indian givers, anything.

I think once TCU/Adam22 started noticing RP and gave us a shout out, a lot more people knew about the account and that’s when we had to step our game up. I’d watch basically every edit that came out to look for stuff to dog on. The rest is history.

We had a lot of great times and good laughs. As of the post reveal video, I decided that I’m going to be stepping down from my position at Rodeo Peanut.

Also I’ve been hearing a lot of rumours, so I’d like to clear this up: Montana Ricky was/is not part of Rodeo Peanut. I’ve been hearing a lot about this assumption, but that is false. He is a good friend of mine and he was with me when we went on Instagram Live, but he is not ‘taking over’ the account. You guys take things way too literally. He was joking!”