If you use social media of any kind, you have probably come across the profile of Kalen Allen, a 21-year-old actor studying at Temple University. Kalen took the internet by storm with his reaction videos and captivating personality.
He is the creator of “Kalen Reacts”, a series of hilarious videos featuring him reacting to some not-so-savory recipes featured on various shows and online segments.
These videos led him to gain 30.2 thousand followers on Twitter. He’s received hundreds of responses even has celebrities like Chrissy Teigen and Seth Rogen following him. In a short amount of time, Kalen won the hearts of millions of viewers.
Thank you for this.
— Seth Rogen (@Sethrogen) November 16, 2017
Check the first video out here
Kalen’s fame is no surprise – he is a natural born star.
I reached out to Kalen this week regarding how he feels about all the attention he has been receiving. Even through email correspondence, his humor and charisma shine through the simple written words on the screen.
Kalen originally hails from Kansas City, Kansas. Kalen stated that as a child, he knew exactly what he wanted to be.
“I was determined… to be the leading plastic surgeon in all of 90210! However, there was also a piece of me that wanted to be a chef. Then, there was another piece, that wanted to be an artist.” Kalen said.
Once he had reached the age of ten, he claims he had “grown to fully understand capitalism, financial stability, and the purpose of a job. This then led to the many conversations with myself concerning what exactly I wanted to do in life.”
Eventually, he found that after a critical analysis of the three options, his desire wasn’t distributed equally among them.
He found that two of these things were merely just constructs of societal standards of what his dreams and aspirations are supposed to be while the other was just something he loved to do.
What he loved was acting.
“I’ve never the type of artist to accept no as an answer. If I wanted to create or do something, I’d make it happen by any means necessary.”
Kalen is finishing up his senior year at Temple University and will be graduating in May 2018. Temple has almost 30,000 undergraduate students, and an ever-growing population are familiar with Kalen and his videos. He says “the fame at first was really overwhelming, but now it doesn’t bother me. I’m more focused on chasing the dream now and staying focused in my artistry than the popularity.”
We are proud of Kalen and wish him all the best.
Kalen, keep being you and doing your thing. We hope to see your name in lights soon!