No wonder construction season in Minnesota lasts so long -- construction crews are too busy creating viral videos on TikTok!

I was listening to a podcast recently by a pastor who noted how road construction in Minnesota literally never ends. "I attended North Central in 2005," he said, "and they were working on I-35 then...it's 2021, and they're still working on I-35! Like, are they working on it one nail at a time or what?!" The guy's not wrong -- roadwork in Minnesota never seems to end, and -- to make matters worse -- it all seems to happen during Minnesota's peak travel season.

Well, some recent videos by a local construction worker and TikTok sensation may finally reveal the real reason construction season in Minnesota really lasts so long.

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A Minnesota man who goes by Heavy Metal Learning on TikTok has become something of a hit on the short form video platform for his videos of, basically, goofing off at construction sites. We featured him nearly a year ago for some clever videos in which he turned Minnesota city names into puns (a stick in one hand and bottle of Maple syrup in the other are "Maplewood).

Well, his goofy antics haven't let up. "Your road's gonna take a little longer to finish...sorry," he captioned the first TikTok video which sees him dancing to a version of the popular dance/reggae-remix song "Calabria." He mimics the song's trumpets by pretending to play an orange construction cone while two digging excavators behind him pound the ground to the song's beat. The video has over 2.7 million views.

A second video is nearly identical to the first, except instead of facing the excavators he faces the camera. "10am mandatory crew dance break!" reads the video's caption. That one has over 1.1 million views.

For more videos from Heavy Metal Learning, follow him on TikTok here. For updates on Central Minnesota road work and other construction projects, subscribe to our sister station WJON.

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