Dancing through the Chaos

This is not a joke. I’m legit stranded in Japan w/ 31 people and have no clue when I’m coming home.”

So begins the now-viral video series of Dr. Trevor Boffone (aka @dr_boffone on Instagram, @official_dr_boffone on TikTok, and @trevor.boffone on Facebook), a virtual journey that followed an arduous real-life one on social media.

On the first video, a perplexed Trevor stands in the soft drink aisle of a convenience store, shrugs helplessly and launches into a peppy dance number to the tune of “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.” 

In front of him is the text:

“POV: You chaperoned a student trip to Japan and when you arrive at the airport you find out that American Airlines/Japan Airlines lost your booking and now you're stranded in Osaka, Japan and American Airlines tells you the soonest available flight is in 12 days and the only thing that will comfort you is another trip to the 7-11.” The video quickly amassed thousands of views and comments.

Dr. Trevor Boffone knows what it’s like to go viral – he and his Bellaire High School Spanish students took TikTok by storm four years ago when he started choreographing and posting the dance moves his students were teaching him. “It happened immediately; I got like 10,000 followers within a week, and 50,000 within six weeks,” he told Good Morning America in an interview at the time. Within two months, his followers shot up to 100,000, with views in the millions.

Trevor and Kayla Boffone enjoy bowls of ramen in Kyoto, which they consider one of the best meals of the trip.

Trevor’s outsized social media presence began as a way to connect with his students, and ended up as the subject of his first book: Renegades: Digital Dance Cultures from Dubsmash to TikTok. Now the pop-culture scholar has begun a new career as a professor at Rice University and a content producer for Stages Houston. But he never imagined that his flair for dance and social media would help him get back home from the other side of the world – along with 30 other teachers, parents, and Carnegie Vanguard High School students on a class trip to Japan, all stranded in Osaka because of an airline error. 

Wife Kayla Boffone, theatre director at Bellaire High School, had joined him on the chaperoning gig, invited by longtime friend and fellow theater teacher at Carnegie Vanguard, Steward Savage, and they’d had a great trip – nine days exploring Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, several smaller cities and a number of temples and museums. They’d ridden a bullet train, eaten sushi in its place of origin, and, surprisingly, had some of the best pizza they’d ever tasted. Trevor had done TikToks eating the famous black eggs of Owakudani, which was supposed to extend his life by seven years; danced his signature “Hannah Montana” dance in front of Kyoto’s Nijo Castle; and did a montage of some of his favorite Japanese architecture. In short, he’d had a blast. 

Until, that is, the group checked in at the Itami Airport in Osaka for the trip home and got the shock of their lives. They all had reservations, they were informed, but no tickets. 

Somehow American Airlines made a mistake and didn’t pass along the information about the 31 passengers that were to fly to Tokyo on the morning of August 11. And so they had a reservation, but not a booking. The soonest they could get a flight home, they were told, was in 12 days. 

“We kept calling and they kept saying, ‘We cannot help you until the group booking opens,’ which to me feels insane,” said Trevor. “You have 31 teachers and students stuck in Japan. Like someone should be able to help you, right?”

A shrine at Bangkok International Airport, which became the backdrop in a now famous TikTok video (@official_dr_boffone). 

At the height of his frustration, he stepped out to film the 7-11 video, which quickly shot to 135,000 views on TikTok, and nearly another thousand on Instagram. But it was the next one that really topped the charts – the one where, standing in the hotel lobby in front of the vending machines, he laid out the whole debacle, ending with the solution the airlines finally came up with: an obligatory 48-hour trip around the world. 

It wasn’t until their first layover – some 12 hours later, in the middle of the night, in Bangkok, Thailand – that he logged back on, ready to make a new video, and saw that his second post had gone viral – big time. It had already topped a million views; at press time, it was over 2.7 million. 

“I was super shocked because, you know, you just throw things out, and even though I've gone viral before… but you just never know what is going to resonate with people and what stories they're going to want to pay attention to.”

This story, apparently, had all the ingredients for a viral post: “It had a good hook – I’m stuck in Japan. I'm with 31 students and teachers. And big corporate American Airlines will not help us.” 

It didn’t hurt, of course, that he was already a hip hop dance sensation on “the Clock App,” as he calls TikTok. But for the first time, he went viral with a non-dance video.

Kayla, for her part, was not too surprised. She’s seen her husband’s TikTok account take off before, but it wasn’t until they finally made it back to Houston that it hit home the impact his posts had had.

“I don't want to say I'm used to it at this point, but yeah, he has a strong presence on social media, so it I guess was helpful in getting the attention of the airlines to hopefully fix the issue faster,” said Kayla. As for herself, she’s a bit more reserved and definitely does not have a big social media presence, she says. 

“So I usually just kind of step to the side and let Trevor do his thing when he is social media-ing. At this point it happens a lot.” Sometimes, like when they were at Nijo Castle in Kyoto, she gets to lend a hand. “He was like, ‘Hey, um, I know it's raining, but can you please come film me? I need to make a video in front of this arch.’ And so we went out … and sometimes my cinematography skills are not up to par, but I felt honored to be asked on that day.”

ALL TOGETHER NOW Trevor and Kayla Boffone traveled with a group of 30 teachers, parents, and Carnegie Vanguard High School students to Japan. Here, the group is pictured in the Asakusa district of Tokyo in front of the Sensō-ji, a Buddhist temple dedicated to the bodhisattva Kannon.

Once they got to Bangkok and Trevor saw the overnight sensation his Osaka video had become on TikTok, he hopped back on and made the Thai-themed dance video he’d been planning on the 12-hour flight there – “One Night in Bangkok” – and linked it back to the previous ones: 

“American Airlines stranded me in Osaka, Japan. Now I’m flying around the world. First stop, Bangkok.”

In Munich, he only had 2.5 hours, so he made a quickie sharing the best pretzel of his life. 

And in Charlotte, N.C. – the last stop before Houston – an exhausted Trevor responded to the news of his and Kayla’s lost luggage with a half-hearted dance number dedicated to Meryl Streep singing ABBA – and “watching Mamma Mia on every flight.”

Finally, back at home, they were able to relax and go through the photos and remember some of the highlights of the trip itself. “I know we've focused a lot on what happened at the very end of the trip,” said Kayla. “But the trip itself – just getting to be there and experience the culture was really incredible.”

She loved Tokyo the best – she remembers the neon lights, the breathtakingly fast bullet trains, the bustling energy everywhere she went.

One of the things that really surprised her was that, despite the fact that Tokyo was nearly as hot and humid as Houston, she still enjoyed spending time outdoors. 

“I don't want to sound cheesy, but I thought it was a really magical place. Like the signage and the lights, everything there. I don't know if it was the humidity or what it was, but it felt very glowy and it had a really beautiful energy to it. It’s one of those places where you travel to and you just connect with it in such a different way.”

For his part, Trevor has been focused on getting their lost luggage back – hours of filling out forms and waiting through automated phone hell – and trying to recover the $600 he lost in extra expenses. 

His goal throughout the ordeal was to stay positive – to help raise the group’s morale and his own. And if the videos are any indication, to a large extent, he succeeded. 

“I tried to have fun with it and tell the story in a way that felt organic to who I am and also a way that felt organic to TikTok. I never wanted to rant, you know, and complain and be negative. I tried to be positive about it. And even though I was very upset about American Airlines, I've never wanted to use my platform to just be mean or ranty or negative. I can do that behind closed doors.”

Asked where he gets his capacity to turn adversity into creative good humor, he harkens to his origins as a native of New Orleans. Living through the nightmare of Katrina and other natural disasters was a lesson in emotional resiliency, he said. 

At the end of the day, he found a heartwarming side to the whole fiasco. 

“It was kind of funny because I was posting updates as I went. And so every time I got off the plane, I had DMs, and usually they were a bit late because people got the videos too late, but they were like, ‘Hey, I'm in Munich, or my cousin lives in Munich. I'll send him to the airport with food for y'all.’ Or several people offered to drive me from IAH to Hobby (Trevor’s car was parked at Hobby Airport, but he was rerouted to George Bush Intercontinental…). One person was in Charlotte and she was like, ‘I work for American. I can have some special stuff for y'all in Charlotte.’ And I'm like, I don't know what the special stuff would be, but like, people were trying to help, right? And they wanted to offer their resources in whatever way they could.”

And for those who want to know if they ever got their luggage back… as of press time, one suitcase out of two had arrived. Twelve days after their departure from Osaka … the day American Airlines had first offered to send them home. 

Grist for another TikTok, of course.

Tips from our Travelers

Trevor shares a few insights gained from his recent foray.

On Japan: 

Don’t miss: (Restaurants, museums, parks, historic sites, etc.) Kyoto, especially the Arashiyama area. The walk from the Bamboo Forest along the river back into town is gorgeous, peaceful, and a perfect respite from the crowded city. 

Don't bother: Skip sushi. It's not that different from the sushi you can get in Houston so I wouldn't "waste" a meal on it. The ramen on the other hand...

What surprised me: Japan is the cleanest place I've ever been. The entire country was meticulous!

What delighted me: The food! Japanese food is top-tier, but don't forget about the desserts. The sponge cakes were off the charts!

Worth the splurge: Japan has excellent shopping so definitely budget to spend some money on souvenirs.

What I learned from the locals: Silence is king.

What I will never forget: (Besides the trip home!) Stumbling upon a pop-up bar in Kyoto and then strolling along the Kamo River at night.

On Travel Under Duress:

Lessons learned: Don't forget to eat and drink often so you don't get hangry or more easily lose your patience. Sleep as much as you can!

Lessons I'd rather forget: Always pack extra clothes and deodorant in your carry-on bag.

How to keep a positive attitude: Knowing that so much of the travel kerfuffle was beyond my control helped me to view it in a positive light. After a certain point, I was along for the ride and couldn’t change anything about that.

How to help boost group morale: Make TikToks! ... Jokes aside, staying positive can go a long way. Creating fun social media posts can be a great way for group bonding and to help pass the time.

Editor’s note: Click here to read an article Bellaire High School student Olivia Baba wrote about Dr. Boffone for our School Buzz blog in 2019. It was one of The Buzz Magazines’ most-read stories of the year in 2019.