After more than a century of caring for and cultivating their land in western Oklahoma, the Didier family is familiar with the hard work and determination required to navigate the ebbs and flows of farming and ranching. The Didiers’ agricultural experience may stretch back to 1902, but it was only over the last few years that the family started getting their hands dirty with more unfamiliar territory: social media.
The legacy farming family first began creating viral online skits to give the increasingly urban world a peek at rural life and work.
Not long after they debuted clips featuring “farm facts,” “farminology” and “tips from granny,” the Didiers began using their platform to share life lessons and even sprinkle in some witty political commentary.
The sketches are the brainchild of Gatlin Didier, a fifth-generation member of the Didier family farming and ranching dynasty.
“It’s just been a whirlwind how we got here, but it’s been cool because there weren’t very many people in the agriculture, farming, country, ranching space doing what we do,” Gatlin told The Federalist. “We’re all about freedoms on our farm, in our country, and in our faith. So that’s the message we try to bring home.”
Millions of Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube followers suggest the Didier family has successfully done just that.
A Family Affair
Gatlin, who plays a character called “Darrell Bibbins,” first started the Didier family content creation quest in 2020 with his cousin and longtime best friend, Jarrett Sitton, also known as “Gate Bart Bibbins.”
The pair grew up and worked on the Didier farm together for most of their lives before Gatlin left for school and eventually Los Angeles to pursue his acting and film passion. Government-mandated lockdowns meant Gatlin had much more time to spend on the farm with family and on creative projects.
“It just evolved organically out of me trying to showcase my talents, my capabilities with what God blessed me with. And then I got started doing it in the world that I grew up in, which was full circle,” Gatlin said.
By early 2022, Gatlin was back at the family ranch to stay. In an age where more and more legacy farmers and ranchers are retiring without anyone to take over duties or land, that was good news for Grandma Kay, or “Granny Bibbins,” who joined in the viral video creation fun around March 2021.
Since she still resides on the family homestead where Gatlin regularly filmed, Kay popped up in a few clips as a background character. It wasn’t long, however, before the 82-year-old matriarch became a staple in her grandson’s social media shenanigans.
“[Gatlin] would just come in the house, and he would just say, ‘Come on. You gotta go help me.’ He wouldn’t even give me time to comb my hair,” Kay told The Federalist.
Kay’s popularity didn’t surprise Gatlin, who said she was the “inspiration for a lot of the stuff I was videoing.”
“If she’s doing something, that’s great video right there,” Gatlin explained.
The viewers thought so too. Kay’s occasional cameos soon turned into light-hearted lectures centered on dating advice, men who drive lifted trucks, and toilet seat etiquette. A new series highlights “savage granny,” who isn’t afraid to poke fun at vegans, “your mom,” and weak men.
Perhaps the most successful Granny Bibbins bit so far was birthed out of her disdain for online thirst traps. “Morals over hussies,” is an adage Kay uses to remind young men and women “of where our values should be.”
“I’m always stressing stuff,” Kay said. “Anything like that.”
The family emblazoned the saying on pink T-shirts, which sold by the thousands, along with their “fiddle around and find out” merch, a play on Jason Aldean’s controversial song “Try That in a Small Town.”
Separating Wheat from Chaff
Ever since the Didiers entered the online world of comedy in January 2020, they avoided alluding to anything conservative for fear of being “shadowbanned and blackballed.” As the world grew crazier with each passing year, though, Gatlin and Jarrett felt like they finally needed to speak up.
“We’ve sold merch that says ‘God. Family. Country’ on it for two years now. So people kind of knew where we stood. But I was like, how can we be funny and strategic about all this? Let’s just start doing it,” Gatlin explained.
Gatlin specifically decided to shift their content after he heard female swimmer Riley Gaines was assaulted in April 2023 at a speaking event at San Francisco State University for stating the truth about the differences between men and women.
The Didiers rushed to film a comedic exchange about the difference between a bull, which still contains all of its reproductive parts, and a steer, a male bovine that is castrated. The video explains why even a steer without his parts can’t have calves and shouldn’t share a pen with the vulnerable members of the herd.
“At the end of the day, you can polish its cow patty all you want, but it’s still bullsh-t,” Gatlin’s character Darrell concludes.
The video prompted the Didiers’ first round of death threats, but they were not deterred.
Soon the family had pivoted from parodying popular songs like Lizzo’s “About D-mn Time,” which they turned into “About Farm Time,” to giving commentary on the problems affecting everyday Americans.
Since April, the Didiers have cranked out comedy sketches that highlight the importance of putting America first, express frustration with bureaucrats and red tape, caution against blindly following celebrity endorsements, and dissect the true meaning of government “mandates.”
A recent video tactfully explains the problems with the “longhorn invasion” in our nation’s southern pasture.
Most of the skits end with a pro-faith or pro-freedom quote from a notable political or religious figure such as Benjamin Franklin, Saint Augustine, or Ronald Reagan.
The Future of the Farm
For speaking the truth about their values and morals, the Didiers have faced backlash. In the last year, they’ve lost half a dozen sponsorships.
“We actually had a six-figure deal, literally about to sign. Then we put the bulls-versus-steers video out, and it was yanked,” Gatlin explained.
A friend who worked at the company told the Didiers that the marketing team “leans a certain way” and didn’t like the candor about sex displayed on the family’s social media pages.
The negative pressure campaign to censor their beliefs didn’t keep the Didiers from using humor to elevate God and challenge left-wing narratives. In fact, the threat to their social media revenue eventually prompted the family to explore selling the fruits of their farm labor directly to fans.
Kay, who revealed during our interview that she drinks about 10 cups of coffee a day, recently launched a Granny Bibbins-themed java roast. Gatlin’s father and uncle, the primary caregivers of Didier Ranch, also plan to start selling and shipping their premium black Angus right to consumers’ doorsteps.
Products like Granny-approved Joe and farm-to-table beef come in handy when the rain doesn’t fall, the government’s grip on the food-growing industry grows tighter, and sponsors pull out of deals after hearing the truth about biology.
“That’s the blessing out of all of this,” Gatlin said. “We learned a lesson like, hey, maybe we shouldn’t rely on sponsors. Maybe we should have our own thing and build something really big here.”
Gatlin said the family wouldn’t have had the opportunities they have now without first “getting canceled” by their sponsors. The Didiers also certainly wouldn’t be where they are now without their faith in God.
“That’s been a huge part of who we are. God gave us this platform. Now we should really leverage this more than ever to get His Word out there. Because we need it more than ever,” Gatlin said.
“When you’re a farmer, you have to have a lot of faith to keep going,” Kay added.
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.
Comments are closed.