Car salesman's 'where the money reside' catchphrase goes viral: 'Gonna be my ticket out'

A Louisiana car salesman has single-handedly created one of the most viral catchphrases of 2020.

Over the last few weeks, social media has been utterly enamored with Relly B., whose real name is Durell Smylie, of Baton Rouge. Not only has the 23-year-old car salesman’s face been all over the internet, but so has his now-famous tagline, “I’m at where the money reside.”

Since May, Smylie has been marketing to potential customers by posting creative videos to his social media accounts, but on Dec. 14, he decided to share one ad on Twitter for the first time. In the video, he says his catchphrase several times and dances to the 2003 hit “Salt Shaker” by the Ying Yang Twins.

“If you didn’t know ... this why I sell so many cars ... I promote myself,” he captioned the video in a now-deleted tweet. He reshared a portion of the now-viral video on his Instagram account on Monday.

Smylie tells Yahoo Life that he has only been a car salesman for one year after losing a previous job. Though he says that sales increased during the pandemic, business was a bit slow at the dealership on the day he filmed his video.

“I was kind of famous already, like locally, because I had been posting the videos consistently,” he says. “I told my manager, I need to make a ‘where the money reside’ video [because business] might start coming in. So he was like, ‘Well go make one then. Stop telling me about it and go make it.’”

In addition to the millions of views his video received, Smylie has been featured in countless memes and remixes.

He even had celebrities like rappers Megan Thee Stallion and Saweetie, as well as actor Nico Annan from P-Valley, quoting and sharing his content.

The viral sensation says that he is surprised by the reaction, not just regarding the scale, but the fact that it has been overwhelming positive.

“It puts me at peace because I thought I was going viral for quote-on-quote the wrong reason, I thought they were going to look at more of the flamboyance and not look at the central message behind it,” he admits. “So it put me at peace that people were taking it as a positive way.”

As far as his catchphrase, Smylie has been using it in his videos since the beginning.

“Honestly, ‘where the money resides,’ that just came to my head. I was saying ‘where the money, where the money,’ but just ‘where the money reside,’ that was something that came to me, that was just something that I blurted out. And you know, I just stuck with it,” he says.

Smylie has also decided to take the important step of trademarking his brand after noticing social media accounts popping up with “where the money reside” in their names.

“I watched Peaches Monroe coming up when I was in middle school and everything,” he adds. “She made the word ‘fleek’ and she didn’t trademark it, and you know, it blew up. We still use it ‘til this day, numerous artists use it in their songs so you know, I said, ‘that’s not gonna be my route.’ ‘Where the money reside’ is gonna be my ticket out. So I’m just gonna market and capitalize off that as best as I can.”

Smylie has created merchandise featuring his slogan, which he says sells out pretty quickly every time he posts. He also hopes to work with FashionNova in the future.

“Anything, any opportunity that prevails, I’m gonna take it,” he says. “So you know, I’m just open to anything, acting, making a song, you know, I might model. You never know.”

Related: What does 'going viral' mean?

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