Senior Phoebe Pritchard’s TikTok profile. She is known for her “BookTok” content, sharing her love for reading with the world.

    While seated on her toilet, her phone buzzing with notifications, senior Kaelie Dieter realized that her recent TikTok video received 2.3 million views. But with her friends blocked, no one at school knew she had officially gone viral.

     Two Shorecrest students are approaching 20,000 TikTok followers, and even more have had videos go viral. Their increasing popularity on TikTok blends into their social lives, affecting how they’re perceived at school. However, some seem to cringe at the idea of being known, being recognized within the community. 

     With around 18,200 TikTok followers, Dieter posted seemingly random videos designed to make people laugh, but the engagement was uplifting. 

     But the fame high can’t last for long — every video that didn’t reach that same status didn’t even seem worth celebrating. 

     “It’s very hard to get to that state again unless you’re uber famous. So it’s a little demeaning,” Dieter said. Each “like” is another dose of the drug. There’s a thrill in going viral online, encouraging further posting, but once the video never reaches that state again, it seems worthless. 

    Still, Dieter didn’t let that discourage her from posting what made her happy. “I don’t really care what anyone thinks. I kind of just do my own thing. But I didn’t want my friends to see it, because still, I’m scared of what they think,” she said.  

     What people think. It’s almost impossible to post online without people you know finding out. Somehow, 2 million strangers seeing a video seems way less threatening than the random freshman coming up to you at your school.

     Senior Phoebe Pritchard started a BookTok for fun. Through consistent posting, Pritchard has built up a fan base of 19,800 followers who admire her reviews, her style and her personality.

      It may seem great at first, but once you get enough likes, it just doesn’t even seem to matter. 

  “Now I feel like I don’t even notice [when I go viral]. It’s lost its appeal now that it’s happened a few times. It doesn’t impress me anymore,” Pritchard said. 

     Although her goal was never to gain the attention of millions, Pritchard turned her passion into a form of artwork. For her, it’s a creative platform where it’s easy to find someone else with the same hobbies. A stranger telling you they like your style or the way you look can be affirming and a confidence boost. 

Junior Claire James received 69,000 likes for her shoe collection. Her account, formed to display her style, unexpectedly went viral.

     “Everybody was asking me where I got [my shoes] from, and I was like, ‘Wow, I feel so 

cool right now,’” James said.

     Not only does TikTok bring personal validation, many use it as a marketing tool. 

     As a promotion strategy, Shorecrest’s Thespians Troupe 3140 created a TikTok account last school year. In April, amidst tech week of their production of “The Addams Family,” a video of a transition between the leads received 14 million views. 

     But once the troupe reached this fame, posting began to feel like a chore. “I made this great content and almost achieved this unachievable accomplishment, so it definitely puts a lot more pressure, and the quality of the content has to be a lot more consistent, reliable and a lot less fun,” junior Jill Marcus, who runs the Troupe 3140 TikTok account, said. 

     Even when posting as a hobby, creating regular content can be overwhelming. “It’s become a chore for me at this point. I think a lot of the time it’s very much something I have to do and have to schedule time for. It’s not really a hobby anymore,” Pritchard said.

     However, the fame can still be something to celebrate and enjoy. “For theater people, specifically, we are all attention w—s,” Marcus said. “The whole reason we’re doing this show is that we want people to look at us and watch us.” 

     Attention is still desirable, regardless of whether you’ve gone viral. 

     “Unless you’re like the next child prodigy of NASA or something, so many people seeing, agreeing with, and affirming you, it makes you feel successful,” Dieter said.