TikTok is a large social media platform, and for many people, going viral is a goal of theirs. Sophomore Santi Tanner met that goal.

Santi posts relatable TikTok videos on his account, and has gotten up to 98 thousand followers, and has gotten as many as 22.9 million likes. Santi started posting videos because other people were doing it, and it has led him somewhere—something it doesn’t do for many.

“I just saw other people posting relatable videos, and I saw that they were getting a lot of likes, so I started doing what they were doing,” Santi said.

Santi decided to start posting TikToks because he found that other people achieved internet fame. He hoped that through posting videos, he would get more likes and followers too.

Three months ago, Santi started to get more likes on his videos, which increased his number of followers as well. This has led him to be a successful content creator.

“I started getting [a lot of followers] three months ago, and I was excited that my videos were getting a lot of likes,” Santi said.

Santi was glad that his videos were getting more likes and he was getting more followers. Santi wasn’t influenced by anyone specific to post Tik Toks. No one made him more interested in doing it. He just observed that other people were going viral, and decided he would try it.

“[I was just influenced] by people [to start making TikToks],” Santi said. “Not people that I know, but people that I’ve seen while I was scrolling on TikTok.”

Nobody specifically led Santi to pursue being a content creator; he just wanted to try it out after seeing other people doing it. It proved to be a good decision.

Being a content creator can be a lot of work, and Santi has to manage that along with school and sports; however, he doesn’t struggle with it at all. He knows what he has to get done, and he makes sure it all happens.

“TikTok doesn’t interfere with any of my school work because I know how to balance doing my work and when I need to post a video,” Santi said.

Santi doesn’t get behind on anything because he knows how to manage his time. TikTok doesn’t bring any negative effects into his day to day life.

However, it does bring positive things. Due to being a highly viewed creator, Santi gets many brand deals. He gets sent lots of shoes and then posts about them to advertise. It is a win for him and for the companies sending him things.

“I get shoes from several different companies,” Santi said. “They send me free shoes and I promote them in my videos.”

Santi gets brand deals that send him shoes so that he can advertise them. He uses them in his relatable content videos, which are what he posts. He doesn’t think he would ever post a different type of video out of fear that his followers would go down.

“I could not see my self posting videos other than relatable videos because relatable videos are what my viewers follow me for,” Santi said. “I think changing it up would have a negative impact on my account.”

Mixing things up always has a possibility of back firing, so he chooses not to. He works hard on his account, and believes that it will help in the future to be even more successful.

“Being a content creator is something I will use in the future because it will bring me many more and bigger benefits than it does now,” Santi said.