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A day in the life of a TikTok influencer

Good influence: Sam Fishwick, centre, at the TikTok House in Essex with, from left, content creators Eloise Fouladgar, Jimbo H, Millie T, Elmofilms, Touchdalight and Kate Elisabeth: Matt Writtle
Good influence: Sam Fishwick, centre, at the TikTok House in Essex with, from left, content creators Eloise Fouladgar, Jimbo H, Millie T, Elmofilms, Touchdalight and Kate Elisabeth: Matt Writtle

Hello I’m @fishowick, 0 TikTok followers, a certifiably irrelevant digital entity. But here I am, stuffed into a white tracksuit and box-fresh Nike trainers, flanked by six TikTok stars and dancing like my future depends on it. I’ve come to The Wave House, an Essex McMansion with a glittering pool, palatial courtyard, cinema room, jacuzzi, gym and enormous kitchen, just to see if I have what it takes to be an influencer.

When I was little, I wanted to be an astronaut. Now the only new frontiers are online. One survey of UK children in 2017 found 75 per cent wanted to be YouTubers or vloggers when they grow up. No wonder: a recent report estimated that the value of influencer marketing would grow to $9.7 billion (£7.5 billion) in 2020. For Gen Z, it’s all about TikTok.

And so a new industry is emerging, with training academies and in-house managers to service its rapid expansion. The Wave House is on the frontline. In Los Angeles, “collab houses”, also known as content houses, have sprung up. These are like co-working spaces for TikTok influencers; houses where they eat, sleep and live TikTok 24/7. Living together allows for more teamwork and creates narratives for followers (“Wait so HE lives with HER? Follow!”), which means faster growth. What LA starts, London follows. The Wave House is Selling Sunset opulence: a seven-bedroom, £3.5 million, red-brick dream house set on 13 acres of landscaped grounds (they’re renting).

Millie Taylforth (@milliet24, 613k followers), a bright, blonde 19-year-old who began posting gymnastic videos online when she was 12, tells me the wall-sized TV is worth £30,000. The Wave House is the largest and latest collab house in the UK, with 2.5 million followers. It’s home to six switched-on youths whose social media accounts are followed by five-and-a-half million people. They were selected by their management company, Yoke, on the basis that they’ve been friends and collaborators for years.

#content: Sam Fishwick, centre, gets some practice at TikTok-ing with the help of young residents of The Wave House (Matt Writtle)
#content: Sam Fishwick, centre, gets some practice at TikTok-ing with the help of young residents of The Wave House (Matt Writtle)

The pandemic has been boom time for this app, where users post quick, quirky videos among a kaleidoscope of dance trends and prank videos. In the first month, Kate Elisabeth, 20, (@kateelisabethh, 425.3k followers) gained 100,000 new followers. She began her YouTuber life with blogs about boarding school life at Hurtwood House in Surrey. Now she’s in a bedroom with 18th-century furnishings and an en-suite bathroom. “I almost refused to move in because I thought it was haunted,” she says.

“Being stuck inside, you get so much more done,” says her boyfriend Carmie Sellitto, 21, who also lives here (@touchdalight, 521.9k followers) and likes to invite fellow influencers for exotic, yacht-filled holidays to shoot vlogs. “Like before we had plans, actually enjoying ourselves, but being stuck in a house that’s all you can actually do, especially as it’s our job.” Kate adds: “Also the fans are stuck inside, so that means more views.” Together they love dubbing over Made In Chelsea scenes (“It’s iconic,” Kate says).

The nascent stars see The Wave House as “Hogwarts for TikTok”, “Big Brother with iPhones” or “Love Island without the love” (although “there’s actually some love”, counters Eloise Fouladgar, 22, @eloisefouladgar, 2.4 million followers, who is going out with James “Jimbo” Hall, 21, @jimbo.h, 1.2 million followers). It certainly beats the office. They have a cleaner, a house manager and meet to plan content at 9.30am every morning. Today they’ve ordered masks. For Covid? “No, diamante facemasks — so we can lift them off for our followers when we reveal who’s in the house.”

Spencer Elmer, 20, (@elmofilms, 194.5kk followers) tells me he’s recently filmed a “10,000 calorie challenge”: Domino’s pizza for breakfast, Five Guys burgers, Subway, then Krispy Kreme for dessert. Jimbo is planning to rent the biggest water slide in Europe and combine it with three others, then film content on that. It’s 60-feet high.

It isn’t all light-hearted fun. TikTok’s growth has alarmed some in government, who are concerned about how secure it is and whether it may be used for spying. In July, the app’s parent company ByteDance suspended plans to open a global headquarters in Britain. Former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith said he thought TikTok should be banned because of its proximity to “Chinese intelligence services...TikTok is growing like mad”. India has banned it and Donald Trump is considering a ban. The TikTokers I meet won’t be drawn on this. What if the platform was banned? “I guess I’ll go back to uni,” says Kate. “Or get onto the property ladder. Invest all the money I’ve saved.”

At my relatively senile age (29), TikTok is mystifying. They’re keen to teach me the ground rules. Outside, my new friend Millie is showing me how to do the “woah dance”. We’re all standing in front of a camera tripod. I’m the only one wearing the house’s shippable, shoppable merchandise (crisp white, branded). It’s important to fit in. “It’s right hand down, left hand over, wiggle, punch your shoulder,” says Millie, patiently. “No, right hand down. Right.”

Still, there’s serious content too. Spencer blogs about mental health. Eloise talks openly about period cramps on her TikTok. “We need to normalise talking about periods,” she says. In the space of a morning, they’ve also floated the idea of renting a military tank, explored loaning a helicopter and have booked a £585 horse and carriage to back up their big “reveal” video.

“We try to create stuff that’s never been done before,” says Jimbo. “I filled up [Eloise’s] room with 2,000 clothing pegs. That took six hours. I filled her room with 2,000 balloons. That took eight hours. When have you seen that done?” What did she think? “I actually ended up loving it. We were just swimming around in balloons.” She pauses. “The peg one was inconvenient.” They post quite heartwarming videos about what being a supportive partner looks like too, which do well with fans.

Carmie and Kate, who have been together for two years, existed as separate people online before carefully working out a strategy to tell their audiences they were together. “People in the industry recorded us at events and posted on social media before we were even announced and that basically gave it away,” says Carmie, wistfully. It’s hard not to envy this relatively carefree existence. “I prefer thinking smart rather than working hard,” says Jimbo. Eloise and Jimbo are on track to earn £100,000 this year together, nearly five times the average graduate salary of £23,000 a year. Dropping out of school, college or university is therefore common.

Kate left a digital film production course at Ravensbourne university in London: “I decided that with Covid it wouldn’t be the same.” Millie became well known for a video entitled “why I dropped out of school aged 16”.

Isn’t a life creating videos for TikTok a bit unfulfilling, I ask? ‘It beats getting up at 6am,’ replies Jimbo

“People said you’re going to regret this [at the time], YouTube won’t last forever,” she says. “When people say that, it really is one of the most dumb things because it’s not just YouTube. Social media is the new wave and each of us is building a business, a brand.” “TikTok is like cryptocurrency was — it’s enormously undervalued right now,” says Jidé Maduako, 26, who dreamt up The Wave House with Yoke management agency. He says TikTok influencers can make between £1,000 and £2,000 a week per million followers from sponsors and advertising — a fraction of the £10,000 to £20,000 they’ll make from Instagram — but one he expects to grow “fivefold” this year. It’s not a party house, he insists, alcohol is banned and there are a series of house rules to attend to. “We’re professionalising content creators like football clubs do their academy stars, in a controlled environment where creators can hone their craft.” Isn’t it a bit unfulfilling? “It beats getting up at 6am,” says Jimbo.

Eloise, who has paused a BA in politics at City university to focus on TikTok, says she and Jimbo were in a bad spot financially in February: the e-commerce site they were working for had folded and the rent for the flat in Windsor they shared was beginning to look unmanageable. Then the management team at Yoke started showing them how to raise revenue through promotions. “We made £3,000 in a day and I was like, ‘Oh my god, we can breathe,’” she says. They all dread content creator’s block and “falling off” — getting dropped from the various social media sites’ promoting content page, if the algorithms that run them deem them less relevant. “In a materialistic way [this life] is beautiful, it’s amazing and we get to do what we want every day,” says Millie. “But there’s a pressure as well. You have hundreds and thousands of people to please, brands to please too. Maybe when it comes to filming you’re not in the mood. It can get to you.”

Her average screen time is seven hours a day. “There’s no off button,” says Spencer. He actually can’t remember the last time his phone was off. Their mutual support is important, though. It’s not all glamour. While we’re outside by the pool, a cleaner fishes a dead rabbit out of the drain. Millie gets chased by a wasp. But we pull it together for our dance video. I slide. I strut. “You’re a Wave House man now,” says Spencer. In my dreams.

The brit-tokers

WHO’S WHO

Holly Hubert

@Hollyh, 16.6m followers

A “Spice Girl for Generation Z”, per The Times. Her videos have been watched around 320 million times.

Amelia Gething

@ameliagething, 7.2m followers

A TikTok comedy skit writer so successful that the BBC tapped her to produce sketch show.

Maisie Smith (Getty Images)
Maisie Smith (Getty Images)

Maisie Smith

@maisielousmith, 1.7m followers

The EastEnders star (above) mixes humour with dancing.

Max and Harvey Mills (Getty Images)
Max and Harvey Mills (Getty Images)

Max and Harvey Mills

(@maxandharveyofficial, 6m followers)

Identical twins and lip-synching champions. Pictured below.

Luke Trotman and Siannise Fudge (Getty Images)
Luke Trotman and Siannise Fudge (Getty Images)

Luke Trotman

(@lukettrotman, 1.2m followers)

Most followers are into his videos with girlfriend Siânnise Fudge, pictured with him above.