TikTok semi-stars between high school life and celebrity dreams

By Maroussia Dubreuil

Posted today at 5:30 p.m., updated at 6:26 p.m.

In Tours, a 17-year-old high school student, a mischievous boil and a cheeky voice, has got into the habit of meeting fans at the end of class. Yet this student of 1re at the Grandmont high school, daughter of managers of a fiber company, is neither an actress nor a singer and has not participated in any telecrochet. The reason for its – relative – celebrity? She posts daily humorous videos on her TikTok account that compile anecdotes about her favorite series: here, three actors who have changed their hair color for a role; there, the last words of celebrities before dying.

In one year, Pauline (@paulluuux) has delighted more than 370,000 subscribers. Ten times less than @ rose.thr, the most famous tiktoker of her generation, but enough to be recognized beyond the borders of Center-Val de Loire. “Last summer, I hoped to go unnoticed at Club Med de la Palmyre, in Charente-Maritime, she remembers. My mother laughed at me: “But after all, you’re not Beyoncé!” Well, three seconds later, two girls rushed at us shouting “Paulluuux, Paulluuux!”… ”

Pauline, alias @paulluuux, who has more than 372,000 subscribers on Tik Tok, Tuesday, May 25, 2021.

To overcome the boredom of the first confinement, many adolescents have embarked on TikTok, the platform of the Chinese giant ByteDance which puts online a junk of filters and music to allow its young users to create fun videos. In March 2020, the application experienced its strongest growth since its launch in 2016, with more than 65 million additional downloads worldwide, according to analysis firm Sensor Tower. Result: each high school has its rising star, its little phenomenon, its semi-celebrity, its teenager who “broke”. Sometimes two per establishment. Crowds in front of the gate, overwhelmed teachers, opportunistic parents, what is the daily life of these self made stars?

Doses of dopamine

Pauline sighs. Its success has not only had positive repercussions: “In high school, people my age are jealous. Some accuse me of having taken the big head … Students of 1re call me Paulluuux on purpose, when I want to be a girl like the others. I don’t want to stay frozen in my TikTok character who wears makeup and dresses for his followers I want to keep going to class in jogging gear. ”

Several times, the teenager thought about hanging up to return to her old life, but TikTok made her addicted: the surge in the counters (subscribers, views and likes) secretes doses of dopamine like a machine. under. So she befriended a senior, “More mature”. This new group of friends, most of whom celebrated their 18th birthday, opened the doors to drunken evenings. Sometimes it’s a bit tricky with boys: “When they learn that I am followed by hundreds of thousands of subscribers, some get scared”, she regrets.

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