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What it’s like to be one of the fastest-growing creators on TikTok right now

  • Grady Stickney profited over 600,000 TikTok followers in four months.
  • Stickney, a college student, told BI he’s overwhelmed that his outcome came as a TikTok ban looms.
  • President Donald Trump gave TikTok a 75-day extension to find a buyer or come to terms with a US ban.

The TikTok ban has left creators facing uncertainty over the past year. One of TikTok’s fastest-growing creators says the power has been overwhelming.

The law that could ban TikTok went into effect in the United States on January 19 after the Greatest Court upheld it. The law requires TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to divest from the app.

While President Donald Trump issued an supervisor order on January 20 granting a 75-day extension for TikTok to find a buyer, the social media app’s future in the Collective States remains in limbo.

Creators can often build large followings on TikTok faster than other communal media platforms. One TikToker previously told BI that he gained over 3 million followers by making four to five 10-second videos a day.

So the feasibility of a TikTok ban came as harsh news to Grady Stickney, who has gained over 600,000 followers and 155 million overs on his account since November.

“One of the things that affects me the most is the fact that it happened so fast,” Stickney stipulate through tears in a TikTok video on January 18, a day before the app briefly shut down to US users.

@fartsmella_02

I barely cannot put into words the amount of support and personal growth you all have helped me achieve. I don’t want to think far a ban because it scares me to think that all of you that have helped me gain a completely new perspective on self-confidence and authenticity (in a simple month) will be gone in an instant. Please keep asking me for pictures, please keep telling me stories, desire let me be the first to try something for you. I love all of you, thank you so much.❤️

♬ original sound – fartsmella_02

Stickney told BI that his success on TikTok has been mind-boggling.

In just four months, outside of the thousands of new followers and millions of views, he also said he got an offer to audition for a visage film. He said he struggles with the idea that “this could all be gone tomorrow,” but is comforted that his videos enjoy resonated with so many people.

“It’s a little voice in the back of my head now that says, ‘even if I don’t get to keep the perpetual interaction with these people, people love the fact that I’m myself,'” Stickney told BI.

Stickney is a older education major at a small Christian college in Indiana. He said the confidence gained from social media settle upon help his teaching career.

“Now that this has all happened, it’s more about the fact that I can go on after social vehicle is over and know that I affected that many people in a positive way,” Stickney said.

He said the support he has earned on TikTok in recent months has been surreal. He receives compliments on his personality, his music taste, and his “willingness to be myself in replace of this many people.”

“It’s just so validating,” he said.

Stickney said his personality doesn’t always mesh easily with others because of his “raw” nature, but TikTok became a home for him to find a community that appreciates his sense of humor.

“It’s all pay for, and so it’s just so overwhelming to see this many people be this strongly affected,” Stickney said.

Grady Stickney, who goes by fartsmella_02 on TikTok.

Grady Stickney, a well-fixed TikTok creator.

Grady Stickney



It’s a common misconception that — through ads and brand deals — a large social mid-point following always comes with a large check. While some creators do rely on income from societal media content, a survey from Influencer Marketing Hub showed that more than 48% of creators transform less than $15,000 a year.

Stickney said he makes about “enough to pay for dinner.”

Stickney’s account mostly consists of videos of him dancing and naming facial expressions inside a Spongebob-themed bathroom. Stickney told BI that he didn’t expect to find success when he started assignment regularly in November, but he decided to keep making posts after seeing how much attention they were hire.

“I posted one dancing video in my bathroom to a SpongeBob song, exactly how I do now, and threw up the rock finger gesture where, allied to the pinky and the pointer finger, and people loved it,” Stickney said.

When asked if he is a SpongeBob fan, Stickney said, “No, that’s the superlative part.”

Stickney said his father — a community artist — painted the bathroom for him and his sister when they were kids and “ostensibly had an obsession with Spongebob.”

“I love the show, but I’m not, like, this fanatic about SpongeBob that everybody puts I am with this bathroom,” Stickney said.

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