We need to talk about Kevin (on TikTok)
Because nobody else will do it with me!!
Embedded is your essential guide to what’s good on the internet, written by Kate Lindsay and edited by Nick Catucci.
If there’s one thing I’m gonna do, it’s interview a guy on TikTok. —Kate
A beauty YouTuber named Kayla Malec came forward about domestic violence. She just got justice in court—so why is *checks notes* James Charles the center of this story?
The first time Kevin appeared on my For You Page, he was just kind of standing there with a backpack on. “Unwritten” by Natasha Beddingfeild was playing, and the comments were nuts. “you know what? Hell yeah” a comment with over 8,000 likes reads. “Depression gone for solid 30 seconds when I see this man on my feed,” another wrote. Kevin responded with a heart.
Like the over 1,400 other commenters, I was charmed by something about this man. He doesn’t dance, or do pranks, or talk about much of anything at all. He gets up, goes to work, comes home, and tries to entertain himself in between. He doesn't know too many people, having recently moved to the Bay Area, so he brings TikTok along instead on his trips to the mall, crossing the street, and solo breakfast dates. “this man always exercising his freedom and free will,” someone wrote on Kevin’s roller disco vlog.
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Kevin has a scientific doctorate, and has been on TikTok since 2020—but it was only in November when his playful and whimsical spirit first took over everyone’s (and by that I mean: an extremely niche but passionate group of people’s) feeds. We hopped on Zoom to chat about this unexpected fame, how he got into these solo side quests, and why more men aren’t making content like this.
What were your first viral videos about?
My first, there was a day where my company had a retreat at a beach conference location. And I didn't tell my parents I was gonna go, so I was gonna go down to the beach and I wanted to take some selfies so I could send them to my parents and be like, "Oh, look, I'm at the beach." And of course I'm wearing business casual clothes, and it was golden hour. So it looked pretty nice out, and I was like, “I'll just make a TikTok.” And I grabbed my selfie stick and just sort of whipped it around a little bit on the beach. So I filmed that one, and that got something like 3 million views.
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And then later that day, our company had dinner at an aquarium and at the aquarium there's this waterfall feature, and I just sort of stood there with my phone as the waterfall gushed behind me. That one's got like 12 million views. And before that day, my account had maybe 20 followers, and some of them were just friends of mine. And then after those two videos hit the algorithm, I suddenly had like 30 or 35,000 followers.
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Now one of your niches is taking viewers with you on these little solo side quests, like going to get pancakes or ice skating. Was that always something you did, and then you decided to film it? Or was it kind of like, this would be fun to do for TikTok?
I've always been kind of a solo person. I don't have that many friends. I just sort of like to do whatever I wanna do, and part of that is just going out and doing stuff. I wouldn't say that I did it super frequently, but I have solo traveled around the world. I plan little solo trips by myself. I think the first video that people seemed to really enjoy was a day where I went to get Afghan food back in November. And it was a day, actually, I wasn't feeling very good about myself. I can't really describe it, but I didn't even shower, I didn't even leave my apartment, and then it was three o'clock in the afternoon and I was like, you know, I just need to go do something. I drove past this Afghan restaurant a couple weeks ago, and, you know, I've never had Afghan food before, so like, why don't I just go walk there and I'll just like make a little vlog out of it? And people seemed to really like it. And I have tried to build off that a little bit and follow it up with other sorts of solo content. But it's all stuff that I would be doing.
You mentioned your friends were originally the ones following you. Do they ever come with you now? How have they been reacting to your fame?
I tried to film one video with a friend and I found that I'm actually kind of embarrassed filming with even just an audience of one person next to me because it's a side of me that they don't really see. I was so uncomfortable doing it, and the footage was really awkward and like it didn't get posted.
I never told my friends I was posting videos on TikTok until I accumulated this following and I've got videos to show for it. They say that I'm not the kind of person that would have a following on TikTok, because in my personal life I'm pretty introverted. I'm kind of shy, and so putting myself out there is something that they wouldn't expect of me.
I feel like that is a bit of the appeal because, for the most part, the people who post online have to be extroverted by nature. And my guess is that your videos are resonating because you have a personality closer to that of the people watching who are just lurkers. How have people online been responding? And what has that been like to be like, wait, like I'm the last person who would be doing this and now I'm getting millions and millions of views?
The response has been overwhelmingly positive. There was like one day, I think it was after I posted the video of me at the Afghan restaurant, I woke up the next day to a thousand comments or something. And 99% of them are just saying such nice things about me, and I've never had that sort of response from anything in my life. Like, I nearly was in tears when I woke up, just reading. I wish I started filming stuff for TikTok and posting it years ago.
Going out into the world and doing things for fun is a muscle that I think a lot of us lost because of the pandemic, and now it's more intimidating than ever before to just go out and go ice skating or get breakfast by yourself.
In today's world there's so much chaos going on with whatever politics are in the news. I think I try really hard to just ignore it at this point, but it seeps into all of our lives. And so I feel like if you're able to go out and just do something fun for yourself, it's a healthy thing.
Speaking of the ice skating video, you ran into viewers there, right?
That's correct.
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Has that started happening more, and what are those interactions like?
It's been really funny. I never expected this to happen. But yeah, I've been found in public a couple times now. Everybody I've met has been so nice, so I feel like the people that are following me and watching me are maybe good people.
I love that they started filming for you too.
They're like, “Are you trying to film a TikTok?” And I was like, “Well, yeah, I guess so.” We tried to film some clips together. It was actually really sweet.
The other hot topic right now is masculinity online, and another reason I wonder if your videos are resonating is because there has been this very one dimensional way that men have been permitted to express themselves online. It's like, "I like making money or getting swole or whatever." Not to say you aren't either of those things, but why don't more men make content like yours, do you think?
It's true that I see a lot of the content of men doing gym activities or it's all about the money and the girls. I can only speak for myself, but I've never been that interested in that characterization of myself. I've never been that much of a gym bro. I'm not interested in becoming a content creator kind of person. I'm just sort of keeping it real about myself, and my videos reflect that part of me.
You're not interested in being a content creator, but is TikTok something you wanna keep doing for a long time?
I feel like I've seen so many creators who maybe they hit the algorithm a couple times and they try to launch some sort of content creation platform based on that, but to me it always feels like they lose the genuine feel of who they are when they start going that direction. So I don't really see myself trying to make money or make a career out of this platform. I kind of just like what I'm doing now where I'll pop in every week or two with maybe some activity I've done or maybe just some random thirst trappy kind of video.
I think it'd be interesting to try to actually make friends from TikTok. I moved across the country here, kind of by myself. And here in the Bay Area, I really don't have any friends. I've had a ton of people reach out to me to say we should hang out, we should eat pancakes together. I haven't had the confidence to really accept their proposals yet.
You should absolutely do a pancake meetup for breakfast.
I have gotten comments that I should host a meet and greet. I'm sort of interested, but I'm also worried that there's a chance that maybe the parasocial interaction might get ruined when they actually meet me in real life and maybe I'm not as cool as they expected me to be. I'm just honestly a normal guy.
Welcome to the weekly scroll, a roundup of articles, links, and other thoughts from being on the internet this week! Ahead: The state of RealIDs, death threats at the New York Times, and the movie I can’t stop recommending.
What I’m consuming…
As someone who certainly doesn’t personally benefit from this at all, I think it’s great!
“When I asked him why he had gone through so much trouble to get to an Ivy League university only to off-load all of the learning to a robot, he said, ‘It’s the best place to meet your co-founder and your wife.’”
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