Erin Brock, AKA: Idiot Babe

You may know her as Erin Brock when she plays Alto Sax for the Marching Jayhawks, or you may know her as “Idiot Babe” from her famous Vine account. Either way, Erin has clearly made her mark on the Lawrence and Internet community, which is why she is a clear choice for the last Campus Celebrity of the semester.

Erin is a freshman here at KU reigning from St. Louis, Missouri, majoring in Journalism. Other than her Vine fame and evident love for marching band, Erin is also in the Kappa Kappa Psi, the band fraternity. Erin currently has 84,273 followers on vine (her goal is to reach 100K at the end of the school year), 10.5K followers on Twitter (@oddlyerin), 9.7K followers on Instagram (@oddlyxerin) and freely interacts with her followers via Snapchat (oddlyerin).

 

 

Okay, so I don’t know about you guys, but I think I have like 50 followers on Vine (if that), so 8.4K is insane to me! When I asked Erin how the fame started, she replied:

 

“I actually had Vine for a super long time before I started making videos. I liked following other people and thought it was a super cool creative outlet because I was following both comedians and various art people. I started getting popular in March-ish of my senior of high school, which was literally only a few months ago. I started making videos literally just for myself. I was involved in an art community where you filmed “art vines” by making six second narrative clips in third person. I found a cool group of friends who were doing that, and they all had side accounts that were just for them, so I was like “oh cool, I’ll make a side account” and it suddenly just started getting popular. It was like, oh I have a hundred followers wow that’s cool, then 200, and then one day I suddenly had like 500 and I was like oh my gosh what’s happening and it just kept going like that. There wasn’t any specific vine that exploded like most viners, it was just gradual. All my vines were getting so popular that I was gaining almost 2,000 followers a day. I became Vine famous out of nowhere. Towards the end of my senior year I could post a vine and have 150 likes within a minute. It’s slowed down a lot now because I’m in college and don’t have as much time to make videos as I did in high school, but I still gain followers regularly. It all just happened really fast. I think it’s super cool that people think I’m funny because I’ve never thought of myself that way. I really try to make an effort to reach out to my followers and keep regular contact with them.”

 

 

It’s incredible to think how fast something like internet fame can happen. Erin’s surge of popularity happened out of nowhere, and now she can hardly walk across campus without someone asking her if she’s “that famous vine chick.” (She doesn’t appreciate that nickname very much, by the way.)

 

“I get recognized a lot, actually. It still surprises me. People on campus come up to me. I remember when I first got to KU, I wanted to keep it kind of a secret because I didn’t want people to think I was weird or something. I was at band camp this summer and everyone was following each other’s twitters and stuff when this one girl followed me and was like “what the hell how do you have so many followers?” And I just played it off like “Oh yeah I tweet a lot I guess, I don’t know.” Then one day she came up to me and was like “I saw you on the popular page on Vine and you’re like amazingly huge on Vine?” So I was like well okay cat’s out of the bag, yes I am. But my biggest pet peeve is when people are like “oh, can you give me a shout out” because I’m like, if we’re not friends and I’m not actually interested in what you’re doing, I’m not going to abuse my followers with tons of shout outs. I think being recognized is very flattering, like when I go to a concert or something I have upwards of 30 or 40 people coming up and recognizing me. I used to be SUPER awkward and uncomfortable because I was awkward about meeting new people, but I’ve gotten a lot better. I’m really good at small talk now thanks to Vine! It still weirds me out when people come up and want to take pictures with me. Like what? You want a picture with ME?”

 

 

With all the reorganization, it’s a wonder how Erin has kept such a humble attitude. With fame, even smaller versions of it like Vine, comes both positive and negative feedback. Sometimes the anonymity of the internet can bring out the cruelty of other people, which makes us wonder how Erin has dealt with it. When asked if how she dealt with haters, she replied:

 

“I actually struggled with that a lot. I have longer hair now, but I used to have a hardcore masculine-type pixie cut, and I loved it. (I’m only growing it out now because it’s too expensive to get it cut without my mom to pay for it). I used to get a lot of horrible comments like “man, I can’t tell if this is a boy or girl” or, I think the most popular name was “d*ke b*tch,” which I used to get all the time. Me and one of my closest friends who is also Vine famous had the same hair cut, and she used to get the exact same stuff. It got so bad that there was a period where we were done and wanted to quit Vine. If your Vine gets on the popular page, it opens you up to thousands and thousands of horrible comments. I was really hung up on them and so was my friend. But because we have amazing friends that told us “guys, you can’t let someone that you don’t know sway what you like doing. If you like what you’re doing and have fun doing it, then they shouldn’t matter.” It just made me realize I didn’t know why I was caring about the opinions of people on online. I just got really handsy with the block bottomutton after that. Now I’ve come to realize that the number of praise I get totally outweighs the number of negative things I get. My followers are very loyal and I really care about them. They boost me up and compliment me all the time, and I think they’re amazing. It totally outweighs some stranger online that doesn’t understand my comedy or doesn’t deserve to because they’re too busy being rude.”

 

 

Erin really stands as a shining example of what words can do to a person. For a while, she let the cruelty of her haters get to her, but with the help of her friends she rose above it and came out on top. There’s no time to waste on the haters and their negativity when there’s so much positivity out there. Like her friend said, if you like what you’re doing, then the opinions of other people shouldn’t matter. The only opinion that matters in this situation is Erin’s, and she showed by turning her cheek  that she won’t let the hate get to her.

Well now that we’ve uncovered the up and coming of Vine Famous Erin Brock, she wanted to give some advice to anyone who is/wants to gain social media fame: 

 

“Have fun with what you’re doing, and BE CAREFUL. There are a lot of bad people out there, so you want to watch what you say and what you share. Safety is so important. Once you put something on the internet, there’s no taking it back. Just be ready for that. It’s awesome, and you should be flattered, but you do need to be cautious of what you’re saying and how you’re saying it. It’s a huge platform. People of all ages are looking up to you, and you need to remember that.”