Winona man, family help business through viral 'Littel Johnny Jokes'

WINONA, Minn. (FOX 9) - Jeremy Littel and his sons, Anthony and Dominic have become quite the celebrities on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube. 

The Winona, Minnesota man started his social media journey back in 2017 when Jeremy noticed that more and more people were on their phones 

"I look around the pool….and everyone that is, like, teens to 25 were on the side of the pool looking at social media," Jeremy said. 

It was in that moment Jeremy committed himself to posting three times a day to Instagram in an effort to help grow his beef jerky business. 

He grew from 185 followers to 10,000 in a matter of months, and to nearly 11,000,000 today. 

"They will push your videos if they watch them all the way through… no one is going to stop halfway through; they want to hear what the punch line is," Jeremy said of his videos.

As his audience continued to grow, the pandemic was affecting his livelihood. They lost 80% of their business in a matter of months. 

"I went to TikTok and I posted saying, ‘I’ve never come to you before… if you like jerky go to our website.'" 

People on TikTok started sharing, and within 10 days they had 2,500 orders.

"It brought me to tears," he said. 

The effort to help his business worked, and Jeremy gained a loyal following that looked to him for the laughs.

"At first it was the jokes, and then it was helping people, and I believe my purpose is to make at least one person laugh that wouldn’t otherwise throughout the day." 

With the help of his sons and their "Littel Johnny jokes," they make that purpose a reality for millions of people one punch line at a time.