Most people at Hastings High know her as the quiet, reserved student that keeps to herself. But beyond the school walls, she is what some people might consider to be social media famous. Senior Molly Prickett has over 150,000 followers on TikTok and 4,000 subscribers on YouTube.
TikTok is a media app for creating and sharing short videos. Before joining the TikTok and YouTube world, Prickett enjoyed cosplay (costume play) and making her own lip-syncing videos.
“I was the quiet weird kid, and I did cosplay and loved making lipsync videos because it was easier to express myself because I didn’t have to talk, which is a very difficult thing for me,” Prickett said.
Other creators such as Shane Dawson, Emilia Fart, and Jake Munro inspired Prickett to put herself out there on social media. That, combined with an urge to get out of the house and be more active, is when it all started.
“I always wanted to do it (YouTube), but at the time I was kind of in a bad situation with depression and anxiety. But I wanted to pull myself out of it, so I just started vlogging to get me out of the house and have something to do. It actually has really helped me become more sociable as well,” Prickett said.
All of her followers started pouring in after an “emo cringe” video went viral, gaining over 3 million views. Even with this large amount of followers, she doesn’t consider herself famous.
“I just have enough of a following to be noticed now. It’s not like I have a million followers I have like 150k. It’s not that huge compared to other creators,” Prickett said.
So what is a creator exactly? A content creator is someone who is responsible for the
contribution of information to any media and most especially to digital media. They usually target a specific audience in specific contexts. For Prickett, this means getting paid for posting short videos to TikTok, something she never expected when she started.
What surprised Prickett is the fact that people can relate to her through her videos. People that would have never talked to her are approaching her in school. Meeting her fans is something she enjoys most.
“It feels pretty great when someone I’ve never met comes up to me and says ‘Oh my god I love your videos!’ It just brings us all together to form a little family type thing where no ones judged for anything,” Prickett said.
But, on the downside, along with her many followers and fans come the negative comments and hateful trolls. Prickett receives negative comments and reviews all day every day and it is a struggle on how to handle them.
“I could say what most social media people say, ‘don’t let someone put you down’ but in reality when you have a lot of hate it does get to you. But, I gotta shove it away and just be happy because those people are using my name are just making my following bigger,” Prickett said.
Although it’s difficult to deal with her haters, Prickett still loves creating videos and interacting with her fans.
“I hope they can find what makes them happy cause there’s no reason to be negative in this short life we’ve got,” Prickett said.
Molly’s accounts:
TikTok- @madmolly
YouTube – Mad Molly
Instagram – @mad_molly_creepypasta_xd
