A man’s cheeseburger obsession became a year-long journey of artistry, local promotion, and a perfect showcase of foodie passion, without all of that pretentiousness. 

He’s not a paid influencer, an actor, or any big-wig Kitchen Nightmares leftover extra; Alex Lovinggood is just a regular man from Des Moines, Iowa. Despite every living person on earth having social media accounts, it’s strangely rare to capture a raw, unfiltered personality online. Everyone curates their content and hedges in their natural flair in order to seem kosher online, but there are a few gems that pop up on our feeds every now and then that remind us of the uniqueness and the wholesomeness of societal anomalies. 

Alex is a cheeseburger lover, no doubt, and while some think that his eccentric endeavors were silly, stupid, or downright reckless, there are others (like myself) who seek to honor his journey. In times that are seemingly more «unprecedented» than ever before, it’s nice to see that there are people out there not taking life or themselves too seriously. I like that. This genuineness is rare in real life and even rarer online, so when you find a person whose sole goal for the year is to get a local tattooer to do a piece of permanent cheeseburger art on your body once a month, that’s noteworthy. 

It’s a nice reminder to take ourselves less seriously. 

By platforming so many local artists in Des Moines, Alex’s art circulated the entire internet, turning this local man into a viral sensation. No matter what the reason people were tuning in, Alex’s magnetic personality and upbeat attitude, as well as his passion for burgers, sparked something in audiences that made us all crave a smashburger, a rewatchable comedy movie from the 2010s, and maybe even a new tattoo from an up-and-coming artist.