Talk to anyone, and they can probably name a brother’s friend’s aunt’s stepdaughter that has gone viral on TikTok. With the platform making it easy for everyday people to garner millions of views and likes on content as long as it is catchy, people are getting a taste of fame every single day. Last summer, I posted a humorous video… out of anger. I picked the wrong college the first time around and ended up with mold poisoning, credits that wouldn’t transfer to another institution, and the massive burden of transferring. I decided to make a new account that didn’t have all of my friends following it and posted a video with a list from my notes app green-screened behind me, giving my best tips for those who were soon heading to college. “As someone who messed up over and over and over her first year of college, I’m here to help you out,” I said before launching into a long list of what not to do. After posting this video, which talked about tips such as “If you’re two months in and miserable, LEAVE,” I logged out of the account for four days, and forgot I even posted it. That was until the video popped up on my main account’s For You page. It had over a million views.
As it turned out, the incoming college students were desperate for help. Thinking about it, post-Covid, there has been little guidance for students as they make the lifestyle change from high school to college. How do dining halls work? How do I pick a major? What even is a minor? What laundry detergent should I use? And for some: How do I even do laundry? These students found my video in masses, and from that alone, I gained 20,000 followers. Many of them asked, begged, for more tips in the comments. I was dumbfounded that so many people found value in my ranting. So I put up part two. And then part three. And four, and five, all the way up to close to twenty parts. My followers shot up to 50,000 in no time, and I decided to add my email to my bio to see if any brands would reach out to me, as I saw many influencers doing brand deals at this time. I was extremely surprised when my email started to flood with brand representatives, asking to send me a blender, candles, jewelry, skincare, etc. to try out. It was overwhelming, but I was actually interested in many of the items, so I accepted them and made corresponding videos. Once I went back to college, I was overwhelmed with to-do’s as well as figuring out the campus, as I was a transfer student and now across the country from home. I became inactive on TikTok due to this. I had been consistently posting only college content up until this point, and I was now running out of ideas. Random ideas for TikToks began to pop into my head, and I soon began posting things such as working in retail POVs (with that annoying voice filter everyone was using) and random storytimes. These videos also gained traction for a reason I cannot figure out, and soon they had bypassed the number of views and likes my original viral video amassed. My largest video was a storytime about how I used to be a reenactment actress playing Mark Twain’s daughter in his Connecticut home.
I started receiving collaboration opportunities again, but this time, they were paid. It was extremely tricky to figure out my worth as a creator, how to file taxes for these collabs, and which ones to do, but after researching and consulting a financial advisor I began to get the hang of it. For the past eightish months, I have been posting about whatever I want – Taylor Swift, pop culture, crazy things that happen to me, and of course, my favorite products. It has been far less stressful, and the community of people I’ve built genuinely enjoy whatever I put up, so I am able to post freely. I have gotten some amazing brand deals that I am very proud of, such as with college scholarship funds and beauty brands I have always admired, I even had a brand send me a curated collection of art for my dorm walls. I continue to stay active on my account now, just with far less pressure.
The main thing I would say to anyone who is striving to make a name for themselves on social media is to find a niche and stick with it. There are many people actively trying to become “influencers”, and making yourself stick out in the crowd is essential. For me, it was a manner of working backward, where I had to get control of the situation once I accidentally went viral, and it was not easy to do. But I truly believe that this can happen to anybody, as long as they are authentic and unique with what they create. I am so grateful for the opportunities I have had as a result of putting up the equivalent of a ranting video last year, even though this outcome was a complete surprise.