Short Wave - The Viral TikTok Explaining mRNA Vaccines With ... Forks!

Episode Date: April 30, 2021

We at Short Wave are sometimes a little too aware of how difficult it can be to explain science to a general audience. So when we came across Vick Krishna's viral TikTok breaking down how the mRNA vaccine works, we were impressed and immediately like, "We've got to get him on the show!" Today's that show. Vick breaks down the inspiration, the science and his newfound responsibility as an accidental science communicator.Know someone else bringing science to the masses? Send us an email at [e-mail] pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. Before the pandemic, Vic Krishna acted in some commercials, local New York theater, a couple big TV shows. And then, stuck at home last summer, he found a new way to express his talents, the social media platform, TikTok. Do you mind doing an Indian accent? Sure, of course. Great. Ready when you are. Listen, Karen, the manager isn't here.

Are you even putting on an accent? accent? Usually I've done a lot of skits about the acting world, along with skits about my South Asian culture. You want me to do the stereotypical accent that everybody thinks we sound like because that's what Hollywood has normalized. Yes. And then, earlier this year, Vic found some inspiration out of this very horrible year. The MRNA vaccines made by Moderna and Pfizer, authorized in the U.S. and in other countries around the world. So I first was very intrigued on how this worked. It's really ingenious.

It is because unlike many vaccines, see, like the flu or the measles vaccines, which use a weakened or inactivated virus to trigger an immune response, the new mRNA vaccines, they carry the instructions for ourselves to make a harmless piece of the virus to have that same effect. But all that's easier said than understood. And I noticed this lack of understanding, a parent in my like social circles with friends and family, like they all thought like, oh, this is like they're actually going to inject a coronavirus into you. But that's clearly not the case. So last month, Vic put out a TikTok about a minute-long skit titled How the MRNA Vaccine Works.

So you made this video and it went viral. I mean, it's got more than 7 million views so far. and your, can I call you a TikTok star or TikTok sensation? I guess so. I mean, I don't think of myself as one, but I guess the numbers, I guess, indicate that. Now, it is a really cool little video, and we'll talk about it more later. I loved it when I saw it, but I found out one more thing about my new friend, Vic, that made him even cooler. He, too, works at NPR as a systems administrator.

Oh, gosh, I think I just recently celebrated my 10 years with NPR. a few months back. He's in our New York Bureau, so we've never actually met face to face. And is this strange, like having worked at NPR for so long now appearing in an NPR podcast? Yeah, I feel like my career at NPR has come full circle from working with NPR to being on NPR,

which is quite the turn of events I did not expect. So on today's show, a little chat with Big Krishna, actor, NPR colleague, and a newly minted science communicator. I'm Ritu Chatterjee, and you're listening to Shortwave, the Daily Science Podcast from NPR. So, Vic, I have to say this video is a low production one, but incredibly, incredibly fun to watch. It's a horror film parody, and you play all the characters,

and your acting, if I can say so, is brilliant, and I think it's what makes the video work so well. Thank you. Can you describe who the characters are? Let's start with the villain. Yeah, so the villain is going to be the coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. The protagonist, there's a few, I'd say, the MRNA strand, which is what the vaccine is based on. The MRNA actually has the code, the instruction to make a key protein, the spike protein of the virus.

Now, once the MRI gets injected into the body, it meets the ribosome, which is basically the cell's protein factory. You need to make this. What is it? It's a part of a virus. A virus? Just a part of it, not the actual virus. They have four cans, and they're coming. Fork hands. That's Vic's clever way of showing the spike protein of the coronavirus, which helps the virus attach to ourselves and infect us that way. Fork hands? Please. So the ribosome makes a whole bunch of the spike protein, and now enters our lead hero, the immune system.

So the immune system's sort of like it's this doctor, scientist character, wears a lap coat, loves to read. The immune system's always up to date with literature and articles. Has a surveillance monitor with this laptop. So he keeps track of what's coming in the body and what's not. What is this? This messenger told me to make them. I've never seen these before. I'll make some new antibodies to get rid of them.

Seize the forks. Now, the idea of using a fork, which is just sort of such a day-to-day object, to use it as the spike protein, I mean, it's just a simply brilliant idea. How did you come up with it? So I was coming up with the idea, like, the sitting, like, on my couch, and I have, like, a lot of utensils from, like, either carry out or just from eating. And forks were on my table at the time. And it looked, it looked like menacing enough. It looked like a weapon. It pierces through things. It fit the job of a spike. Like, it has spikes on it. So as a casting director for this TikTok, I was like, yeah, forks, you got the job as spike protein. And did you also have a science background that was helpful?

Because, I mean, this is fairly complicated process, right? Kind of how cells make proteins, how viruses infect, how our immune systems response. Did you have a science background that helped you translate this instead of murder? your science and sort of storytelling experience? I'm always reminded the fact that I actually had failed biology in seventh grade. Ah, no way! Yeah, to date, it still haunts me because I remember my mom getting the phone call for my biology teacher, like, ah, your son has failed biology.

And it was really embarrassing. So I feel like I redeemed myself finally a little bit. Time to send this video to your bioteacher. Yeah, exactly. But, no, I mean, I have a computer science degree. So I don't have anything, like, actually related to this field, the medical field or chemistry or biology. It was really curiosity. I'm really, it's really fascinating to me.

How long did this particular video take? Five days to, like, be completely happy with it and be like, all right, I'm going to publish this. That's a lot of work for doing it kind of on the side. Yeah, yeah, it's definitely a passion of mine. I love acting and just creating. So it doesn't seem like work for me. And you put it out on TikTok. And at what point did you realize, oh, this is bigger than any of my other videos?

Yeah. You start getting tagged and pinged like, yo, I saw you on Reddit or I'm Gore. And it's like, France is like, I saw you. I even had co-workers. It's like, like, you're on Reddit, man. Like, I didn't know you did this. Huh. So, you know, since this video went viral, you have made more of these science-explanar videos about COVID-19 vaccines.

Yeah. I was looking at my comment section after the first one, and there's still, like, large questions at hand that people wanted answers to, and I felt almost responsible to, like, answer them. Like, it's my, like, I should answer it because it's, like, this world I've created is resonating with people. and it's a good opportunity, further educate, further clarify. So what kinds of questions were you getting? Like the top question was why two doses of MRNA vaccine? Why not one dose? Because I feel like the flu shots one dose, right?

So it was like to clear up that. So I did a video. I did more research to like really find the answer and how that answer fits in the world I built. And how could I answer that? So I made another skit, which actually did better than the first. first skit. It's like sitting at like 11 million views. 11 million. That's amazing. I mean, you're really, really making up for that failed seventh

grade biology class here. Yeah, right? I totally am. I need a review on my report card. Right. Thank you. Thank you so much. This was wonderful and so excited to have you on the podcast. Great. Yeah, this is great. A lot of fun, Rithu. Thank you so much. This episode was produced by Rebecca Ramirez, edited by Vietli and fact-checked by Rasha Auredi. Josh Newell was the audio engineer. I'm Ritu Chatterjee. Thanks for listening to Shortwave from NPR.