"Does your mother ever threaten to wash your mouth out with a gallon of soap?" quipped Wanda Sykes while guest hosting Jimmy Kimmel Live in 2021.
She was addressing that night's guest, Minneapolis teenager Isaac Johnson, who had recently reclaimed his Guinness World Record for Largest Mouth Gape. (Sykes asked Johnson if anybody really wants that title, and the teen assured the comedian that his accomplishment was hard-won.) The COVID-masked late-night audience then watched our local hero attempt to cram various objects into his towering mouth—softball, brick, magnifying glass, doll head, VHS tape of Jaws—for a game of "Will It Fit?" (Spoiler: They all fit. Johnson won a giant toothbrush and a PS5.)
That TV appearance four years ago marked the height of Johnson's mainstream fame, though he never really stopped going viral. Here he is last summer, in L.A. on restaurant Burger 3000's dime, chomping a quintuple-decker cheeseburger to the approval and/or horror of 1.6 million Instagram viewers.
These days, the 20-year-old college student finds himself at a curious crossroads: Keep pursuing the normalcy of an accounting/economics degree from St. John's University? Or keep chasing viral influencer clout?
Until around 2017, Johnson says his distended yapper served as a "funny party gag" for friends and family. "I've had the big mouth forever," he confirmed last month to Racket.
Then one day Johnson's brother came home with a Guinness World Records Book, and the boys arrived at the page with Largest Mouth Gape—they figured Isaac had a puncher's chance at breaking it. When dad came home the family measured his toothy gape, concluding that, yes indeed, the Washburn High School freshman might have a peerlessly humungous mouth. Eventually, Johnson jumped through the "crazy process" of applying to Guinness, whose officials bestowed the world's Largest Mouth Gape in 2019.
"Once Guinness did the official reveal, everything blew up so quick," Johnson remembers. "Kimmel was a lot of fun, it was very scary though. Unforgettable experience."
A Pennsylvanian named Phillip Angus (whom Racket mistakenly DM'd for this story) would beat Johnson's record months later, but our hometown gaper reclaimed his title the following year and, while on the set of Italian TV show Lo Show Dei Record in 2022, topped his own record with 4.014 inches of clearance. "It kinda sucked to lose it the first time; I'd like to hold onto it for a while... If I do get beaten, I gotta think about if I wanna break it again or not," he says.
Johnson reports he's treated "mostly" like a normal student on campus in Collegeville, but of course his entire friend group is aware of his mouth fame.
He harbors a healthy mistrust of the influencer lifestyle ("You have to keep some of your normal self") and isn't quite sure if he wants to be known as The Mouth Guy. At the same time, he's dipping his normal-sized toe into that world.
"I've kind of just started [leveraging the mouth online] in the past year," Johnson says. "The giant, stacked burger video ended up going super viral, and the two guys who run that social media account signed me to a one-year media deal to promote me more. That's where I'm at right now."
Johnson had more influencer opportunities booked this winter in L.A., but the wildfires snuffed those out. No matter the direction he chooses, the young Minneapolitan seems to have a good—and very unique—head on his shoulders.
"My biggest thing I say is: Everyone has something they're unique at," he says, "and it can be something as goofy as a big mouth."
