'TikTok Papa' wins hearts by cheering for every kid at Colleyville, Texas graduation

Genevieve Brown
·1 min read
1

This graduation season’s most-loved viral video isn’t one of a valedictorian speech or even of a student at all. It’s of a grandfather in the stands who cheered for every single graduate when their name was called.

It turns out that cheering for everyone is just what Mario Ortiz — also known as “TikTok Papa” — does, his daughter Marlaina Capetillo told TODAY Parents.

“We were all just like, ‘here he goes again.’ It’s just what my dad does,” Capetillo said. But all that cheering and leg slapping wears a person out. Capetillo said he had to switch hands and knees to keep up with all the graduates of Colleyville Heritage High School in Colleyville, Texas during his granddaughter’s graduation.

Capetillo said that her dad is the youngest of 10 siblings and when he graduated, “graduations were not as big of a thing. As a result, he only had his sister in attendance, and she was graduating that day too.

“So now he cheers for every kid,” she said. “He’s just a really kind man.”

Ortiz said he hopes people who see that video will “Listen to their spirit. Do the right or noble thing even if everyone is watching.”

As for learning of his newfound fame as the most beloved Papa on TikTok, Ortiz said he “was very surprised.”

“I’m not on any social media so I didn’t understand the ‘going viral’ term,” he said. “All the positive outcome and attention (from it), I give the glory to God.”