When their 15 minutes of fame came calling, some social media users refused to hang up the phone.
This year, several seemingly regular people leveraged their viral moments into the beginnings of full-fledged influencing or entertainment careers. One day, they were just like us. The next, they were starting podcasts and signing brand deals.
Here are some of the influencers who turned something small into something much bigger in 2024, and the brands they partnered with along the way.
“Who TF Did I Marry?”
Tareasa Johnson, who also goes by the name Reesa Teesa, posted a 50-part, more-than-eight-hour-long TikTok series in February chronicling her twisty-turny relationship with her ex-husband.
Variety reported in September that the series had racked up more than 450 million impressions across social media platforms, bringing Johnson more than 3 million new followers and a contract with talent agency CAA. Now, actor and producer Natasha Rothwell is developing the whole thing into a TV adaptation under her production company, Big Hattie Productions. (We will be sat.)
The Costco Guys
AJ and Big Justice, the father-son duo better known as the Costco Guys, posted a video on TikTok professing their love for the big-box store in March, bringing in more than 60 million views to date. Cue: representation with Night Media, an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, and an original song we fear will be stuck in our heads forever called “We Bring the BOOM!”
While the nature of the duo’s relationship with Costco remains murky (over the summer, AJ wouldn’t tell Rolling Stone if they have a “financial relationship with the brand”), their page features sponsored posts with Lubriderm, Philips Sonicare, and more.
Hawk Tuah girl
Haliey Welch was just answering a man-on-the-street-style interview in Nashville when one phrase changed her life: “You gotta give ’em that ‘hawk tuah’ and spit on that thang!”
Her blunt advice skyrocketed her to notoriety, and she was signed by management firm The Penthouse. Welch began selling merch, appeared at a Zach Bryan concert and on Bill Maher’s podcast, and started her own top-rated podcast called Talk Tuah with Haliey Welch. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows, though—Welch recently came under fire after her newly introduced memecoin, called $HAWK, spiked in value and then plummeted, leading to accusations of a pump-and-dump scheme, which Welch’s lawyer has denied.
Jools Lebron
Dictionary.com named “demure” its word of the year, and we have Jools Lebron to thank for that.
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The Chicago-based creator posted a video advising her audience on how to dress for work (very demure, very mindfully!), and the resulting virality not only made a “demure fall” possible post-brat summer, but also helped Lebron fund the rest of her gender transition. Brands lined up to be a part of the demurity, including Milk Makeup, Lyft, Smashbox Cosmetics, and Zillow.
Petunia
While everyone else on this list is a living, breathing human being, Petunia has proven that she can be an influencer without having opposable thumbs.
The stuffed hippo toy stumbled into virality in October when its owner made a video FaceTiming her friends as Petunia. The friends were delighted to see Petunia on their screens, and 15.3 million TikTok viewers were delighted to watch their interactions. There was also a follow-up call with a circle of frat boys that racked up 2.6 million views. Since then, Petunia has received PR packages from Sephora, Cheez-It, CoverGirl, Byoma, Poppi, and plenty more. It looks like her first official branded post happened with Walmart, and we can’t wait to see what’s next.
The “holding space” queen
In what felt like an entire year full of Wicked promotion, journalist Tracy E. Gilchrist broke through the crowded press tour scene with her now-iconic interview in which she told star Cynthia Erivo that people were “taking the lyrics of ‘Defying Gravity’ and really holding space with that.” No one online really knew what it meant, and it turns out that neither Erivo nor Ariana Grande did either, but we all loved it anyway.
Off the back of the moment of interview fame, Gilchrist partnered with Mac Cosmetics to promote its Viva Glam lipstick in support of its World AIDS Day campaign. It’s the only brand deal Gilchrist has leant her voice to so far, but we’ll be holding space for any others down the line.
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