Dave Ogleton, better known as FitDadCEO on Instagram, made pretty good use of the pandemic. His social media accounts started off with a little bit of everything—his business, his workouts, and slices of his family life—to mixed results. But it wasn’t until 2020, when he fully leaned in to his identity as a dad and his love of pun-based dad jokes, that his following really took off.
Today, he’s one of the most popular parenting creators on the Internet. Ogleton is currently just shy of two million followers on Instagram and celebrating the release of his first book—So Dad It’s Good: The Ultimate Dad-a-Base of Cringeworthy Dad Jokes.
Ogleton recently sat down with Upworthy ahead of Father’s Day
Ogleton built his profile, follower by follower, with dad jokes and humor.
He’s especially famous for elevating the classic dad joke with his trademarked, “No, dummy” videos. They’re a clever format where he subverts a funny punchline to a joke setup with an even funnier punchline at the end. But Ogleton also does skits about being a Millennial and general parenting observations.
Funnily enough, Ogleton tells Upworthy he’s not really all that goofy in his regular life with the kids. Lest anyone think he’s “just the fun dad,” Ogleton says he takes his job pretty seriously.
“I’m probably more serious as a dad than people would probably think,” he says. But he also acknowledges that humor can be an important tool for parents, and he’s learning to keep things light as his kids get older. “That’s something that I actually have been trying to work on, especially lately, with having older kids, older teenagers, one about to become an adult. I’m just getting back to being a more lighter parent instead of so serious all the time.”
It goes to show that even for naturally funny people like Ogleton, it can be a challenge to maintain levity through the day to day grind of parenting.
On the rise of dad creators and influencers
The number of creators who are, and primarily post about being, dads has skyrocketed since 2018. Not only that, but their content gets incredible engagement—not just from fellow dads, but from plenty of moms, too.
Now, you can hardly open Instagram or TikTok without seeing a dad joke about changing diapers, give tips for getting spit-up stains out of baby laundry, or gripe about the never-ending emails from school. Ogleton says it has been amazing to be on the forefront of this shift.
“Moms have been doing this for so many years, you know what I mean?” he says. “And now… a lot of dads are doing more than what they used to because with social media, it’s more visible. You’re seeing that dads are putting in the effort, that dads are showing up more than they used to.”
That visibility matters, he says, to the guys in his audience—largely dads who may feel left out of the conversation in other corners of the parenting world.
“A lot of dads [message me and say] just thank you for making this content. Thank you for making it light because a lot of what I do is relatable and it hits on certain pain points that all parents go through.”
However, he’s adamant that he’s not the guy to go to for parenting advice:
“I’m just trying to keep my six kids alive. I’m not going to give you advice on what to do with your kids. You’re a dad, you’ll figure it out.”
On his Father’s Day plans
What does one of the most famous dads on the Internet want for Father’s Day? Turns out, like most dads, not much.
“We always are very lowkey when it comes to Father’s Day,” Ogleton says. “We’ll probably go out to lunch or dinner, but my kids know me, they’ll probably just inundate me with Legos more than anything else.”
But he does believe that it’s important to carve out a little bit of time to celebrate fathers and father-figures in our kids’ lives.
“To be able to celebrate dads on their day is never a bad day,” he says.
On his new book of dad jokes
Ogleton says it was never a dream of his to write a book, but after years and years of racking up millions of views on his brilliant dad jokes, he had to give the people what they wanted.
He pitched the idea to Penguin Random House and then thought, “‘Oh crap, they actually said yes’ — so I actually had to follow through on it.”
Ogleton says when he sat down to write new jokes for the book (along with some of the all-time favorites from his social media over the years), he aimed to take classic dad-joke set ups and find new punchlines for them. He wanted to keep the format fresh and alive for a new generation of dads.
Ogleton jokes that he’s “just a jump away” from two million followers. With any luck, the book will help him reach the milestone. And that’ll be two million parents too busy laughing to even realize they’re watching the evolution of the modern dad unfold right in front of their eyes.
