"Beard Like Harden": The Story Behind One of the Thunder’s Biggest Viral Sensations, Ten Years Later

"Beard Like Harden" was one of the first online sensations in OKC Thunder culture.

One of the Thunder’s biggest jingles started from a slice of pizza.

Daniel Castor was watching a sports game at his local Pizza Hut when, over the TV, Maroon 5’s “Moves Like Jagger” blared over the restaurant speakers. Daniel’s friend, Abby, put an impromptu spin on the song, replacing Adam Levine’s "Moves Like Jagger" line with “Beard Like Harden,” paying respects to then Thunder guard James Harden.

Castor knew he had something good on his hands.

He immediately had aspirations of creating a full song. On the ride back from Pizza Hut, he began writing lyrics about Oklahoma City’s shaggy-bearded star. For assistance, he called his brother Chris to help with the parody.

Chris, who had just gotten into film production, was all in on the project.

“My brother Daniel and a friend came up with the idea [of the parody],” Chris said. “They brought that to me, and we started working on it.”

After the lyrics for their song had been ironed out, the brothers brought in friends and family to help with the production. Alongside the brothers, their sister Bobbi, helped out on vocals. In the background of the music video, their group of pick-up basketball friends were shown dunking on a lowered hoop, dancing, and donning Harden’s beloved beard.

The song placed Harden’s beard on levels comparable to “Michael’s Secret Stuff” from Space Jam. Alongside the praise for the guard, they also name-dropped Metta World Peace for his infamous elbow against the guard in the 2012 playoffs. However, Chris Castor’s rendition reinstated that you really should fear the beard, singing, “Meta’s elbow has been sore for weeks.”

Initially, the Castor brothers expected their parody to be nothing more than a fun video to share among their family and friends in their hometown of Woodward. Chris uploaded “Beard Like Harden Parody of Maroon 5’s Moves Like Jagger '' on May 10, 2012, and not much mind was paid to its views.

Chris woke up to a barrage of text messages the next morning.

“I think I posted the video on a Thursday evening,” Chris said. “In the middle of the night, I started getting texts from people that we knew that were like ‘the video is up to 15,000 views!’, ‘the video is up to 30,000 views!’ It just incrementally was getting up in views.”

According to Daniel, the video garnered so many views in such a short time frame – YouTube froze its view count the next day.

Their video had officially hit the mainstream by the morning. Chris received calls from news stations when he had no idea how they found his number. As for Daniel, his coworkers had caught wind of the parody.

“At the time, I worked in the oil field,” Daniel said. “So, everybody at work had seen it, which is weird because they’re like big, burly, oil-field men. And so it’s kind of funny since they had seen it and their kids had seen it and stuff. People you wouldn’t expect had already seen it.”

The Castors had cracked viral status. With song parodies being one of the pillars of 2012 YouTube, the video reached a state-wide audience – even fetching a retweet from Harden himself.

The 22-year-old guard, who averaged 16.8 points, 4.1 rebounds, and 3.7 assists off the bench for Oklahoma City, was handed Sixth Man of the Year honors on May 10 – the same day the Castor’s released their video. It was a stroke of luck by sheer coincidence. And it brought even more eyes to their parody in its early moments.

As the Oklahoma City Thunder progressed through the 2011-12 postseason, the Castor brothers continued to release music videos.

After the Thunder rolled through the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference Semifinals, the Castors recorded “Came to Play”, an original song with members from the Woodward, Oklahoma, community. When the Thunder punched their ticket to the NBA Finals, the Castors’ uploaded “Call Me KD”, a parody of Carly Rae Jepson’s “Call Me Maybe.”

The precedent had been set – when the Thunder were winning a series – you could count on the Castors to release a parody on the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Led by a 23-year-old Kevin Durant, a 22-year-old Russell Westbrook, and a 22-year-old, the Oklahoma City Thunder ultimately fell short in the 2012 NBA Finals, falling to the Miami Heat in five games.

The Castors concluded their three-video series after the release of “Call Me KD”. However, their appreciation towards the franchise’s run still remains big on them today.

“It was a fun time for the whole state,” Daniel said. “You go from never having a big professional success team to having this NBA team to being a serious contender. We’d have big parties in our front yard, our parents would put games on our projector, and the whole neighborhood would come out. It was a cool thing in Oklahoma where everyone was saying ‘this is our team.’ It was just a fun time for everybody, and everybody loved the Thunder.”

Chris and Daniel, now in their 30s, haven’t been as involved in the Thunder since transitioning to family life. However, Chris’ passion for film has continued ten years later, most recently working on the movie “Family Camp,” which is now in theaters.

Though the Castor’s parody days have taken a halt in the last decade, the Oklahoma City Thunder’s newest assortment of players and picks have sparked a new wave in the franchise’s direction – one which may repeat the glory days mirrored 10 years ago.

On the chance those “glory days” come back to Bricktown, don’t rule out the Castors’ return to the parody game – at least, in some capacity.

“[If they win a championship] We’ll find some younger attractive people and write the song for them,” Chris said. 

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