The wholesome chaos of JasperTok

“There will be moments where I'm getting ready and I'm just looking at myself in the mirror like, ‘This is crazy. It’s so unhinged.’”

Embedded is your essential guide to what’s good on the internet, written by Kate Lindsay and edited by Nick Catucci.

I know this doesn’t make sense timeline-wise, but I do think Kate McKinnon’s character in Barbie is really just Jasper. —Kate

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If you have to ask what JasperTok is, it might not be for you. Technically, JasperTok is the side of TikTok devoted to Jasper.The.Doll, a near-mutilated doll of Anna from Frozen covered in pen marks. Jasper has the raspy voice (provided by the anonymous owner of the account) of someone who never quite recovered from being run over. She uses both she/her and he/him pronouns and is said to be 22 years old. She sings a cover of Mario Winans’ “I Don’t Wanna Know” that is currently stuck in my head, is behind numerous popular TikTok sounds, and has over 880,000 followers. But Jasper is so much more than all of that. Jasper is a God. Jasper is the breeze in my hair on a weekend. 

@jasper.the.doll @jasper.the.doll ♬ Jasper is the only girl - JasperTheDoll✅

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As Jasper The Doll gained popularity in a certain, deranged corner of TikTok, so did dressing up as Jasper. A number of creators began recreating Jasper’s videos frame by frame, doing their best to resemble the doll both sartorially and in their movements. These creators duet the videos of Jasper so their impressions appear side by side. When Dani Traci gave it a try on March 6, she ended up receiving six million views. 

@danitraci#duet with @jasper.the.doll the amount of takes this took #jasperthedoll #fyp

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Since that first duet, Traci’s account has become all Jasper, all the time. Her impressions still regularly receive hundreds of thousands of views, thanks to just how seriously she takes the task of impersonating a doll. Traci has been acting all her life, and started her own production company after graduating from college. 

“So really doing the JasperTok, it's all of that in one,” she tells me over Zoom.

But what makes Traci’s account, and JasperTok in general, so interesting to me is that it’s impossible to explain. I’ve found this is often the case for some of the most successful TikTok trends. On paper, it does not make sense that a 32-year-old like Traci would spend so much time—and money— making videos impersonating a doll. But TikTok has the power to make fun, dumb, and creative things feel important, something that feels crucial to preserve amidst threats of a ban. 

In this interview for paid subscribers, Traci and I talk about why she was drawn to JasperTok, the work that goes into her account, and how the silliest things often inspire the best communities.