OK, Gen Z: Boomers can be internet stars, too.
Teens are obsessed with TikTok, a social media app that allows users to upload 15- to 60-second videos, with the option to add sound and visual effects. The ultra-popular platform has been downloaded 1.5 billion times as of this November, according to research firm Sensor Tower. It launched two years ago and merged with children’s app Musical.ly in 2018.
This is definitely software for the selfie generation: Although TikTok declined to share specific demographic numbers, a rep for the company says its user base is “mostly Gen Z and millennials.” A scroll through the app’s top videos confirms as much: It’s a riot of meme-ing, break dancing, lip-syncing kids — all in hot pursuit of viral glory.
But they’ve got some tough competition, and not from their peers. Recently, a few oldsters, coaxed by younger family members and co-workers, have found their way onto the platform. To their surprise — and, often, their grandkids’ — they’re killing it, with hundreds of thousands of followers. Here, four TikTok-famous adults tell The Post about their unexpected rise to video fame, and why age ain’t nothing but a number on the internet.
Tim McNeely, the dancing dentist
Age: 46
Handle: @tmdad14
Followers: 1.4 million
Introduction to TikTok: McNeely, a Nashville, Tennessee-based dentist, had a habit of doing silly dances for his nervous patients to cheer them up before procedures. In February 2018, the Gen Xer amused one patient so much that she dared McNeely to download the app — and his staff egged him on.
“I was very reluctant,” McNeely tells The Post. “The first time I danced, I had all these comments like, ‘Lit AF,’ ‘no cap’ and ‘you’re a queen.’ It scared me, because I thought those were insults.” He alerted his 15-year-old daughter, Madeline, who set him straight. “She said, ‘You’re being called a queen? That’s a good thing.’ ”
First viral moment: A June 2019 dance to Rich the Kid’s “Plug Walk,” in which McNeely imitates the finger light from “ET,” blew up on the platform and received some 425,300 “likes.”
Side hustlin’: The dad-fluencer started doing sponsored posts for $50 a pop, but now that he’s got big-name clients, including Tyga and Marc Jacobs, he’s raised his price significantly (although he declined to share the numbers).
On his toughest critic: “I have to run everything through my daughter, because some things [I do] will be very ‘cringe,’ ” says McNeely (that’s kid-speak for “cringe-worthy”; it’s a fine line between “good-cringe” and “too cringe”). At least Madeline and her 11-year-old brother, Connor, are reaping the benefits of their dad’s popularity. “They’re very famous in school,” he says.
Playing to win: McNeely loves being able to “do what these young kids are doing” — and to “compete” with them on the app.
Dan Phelps, the comic chameleon
Age: 55
Handle: @DanPhelps0
Followers: 262.7K
Introduction to TikTok: Phelps, a boomer/Gen X cusper, loved doing silly impressions and voices growing up. He didn’t go pro as an actor — he owns a shoe business in St. George, Utah — but when one of his younger employees showed him the app this July, Phelps thought, “That looks like fun” and made an account.
Instant celeb: Phelps was a hit from his first video. Sitting in his car, he holds an empty paper towel roll to his mouth and roars like a lion.
“Let’s get ready for ‘Lion King’ with the roar challenge,” Phelps says to the camera, before making an incredibly on-point sound-effect.
“I think it did 3 million views,” he says, so he kept creating, sometimes with an assist from his wife, Ramphan. “I watched the trends … and kind of pieced some things together on VSCO girls and things like that.”
Feeling his age: Phelps, a grandfather of seven, says the “young people” on TikTok have embraced him. He does, however, “get called a boomer a lot.” He doesn’t take offense, though. “It’s that phrase that they come up with when they don’t know what else to say.”
Doing it for the ‘likes’: Phelps loves the “instant feedback” that comes with the app. “If I put something on Facebook I might get 20 likes, but you put something on TikTok and you might get a million likes,” he says.
Barbara Lash, the feel-good grandma
Age: 71
Handle: @stampingwithbarbara
Followers: 47.6K
Introduction to TikTok: Lash has her grandson, Milo, to thank for her internet stardom: The baby boomer sent him a package of homemade crafts, and he made a video about it and posted it to the app.
“People started asking, ‘Who’s your grandma?’ So we did a couple [of videos] together and then I started on my own,” says Lash, a retired nurse and current crafting instructor in Franklin, Massachusetts.
Claim to fame: Lash posts vulnerable, vlog-style clips to help her followers with emotional struggles. “One of the things that I’ve been plagued with . . . is depression, so one day I talked about it,” she says. In heartfelt, talking-to-the-camera videos, she discusses everything from volunteering to therapy to eating disorders — “whatever pops into my head.”
What her family thinks: The grandmother of five says her older grandkids appreciate her videos. And her kids are happy to see her finding her purpose online. “They keep saying the same thing. ‘Mom, they love you, keep posting.’ ”
On her love for her audience: “There are a lot of kids who say, ‘I wish you were my grandmother,’ ” Lash says. Her goal is to provide just a little happiness in their day. “Every single night . . . I go outside onto my back porch, I pick a star and pretend [it’s] all my TikTokers and [I send] them all good vibes.”
Lillian Droniak, a Lill wonder
Age: 89
Handle: @grandma_droniak
Followers: 80.7K
Introduction to TikTok: Grandma Lill, as she’s known online, has been making YouTube videos with her 22-year-old grandson, Kevin, since 2012. Their joint channel has 545,000 followers. In November, Kevin made Lill a TikTok account — and it blew up. “Now, look — I’m popular,” says the octogenarian. The Shelton, Connecticut, grandma says that she and Kevin make spur-of-the-moment videos for the new app. “We don’t plan it, we just do it,” she says.
On keeping it real: In Lill’s first TikTok video, she behaves exactly as you’d expect an 89-year-old woman to when confronted with confusing technology: “I don’t understand TikTok,” she says, then riffs nonsensically. “I’m going to be like a clock.” The video blew up overnight. “Everyone was obsessed with her,” says Kevin, a recent grad and content creator living in Newtown, Connecticut.
Technical difficulties: As Lill’s official TikTok manager, Kevin helps her record and post videos. She’s still learning how to use the app — and not speedily. “It took me three years to teach her how to use Instagram,” he says. But he knows it brings her joy, so he keeps at it. “I think it adds some new spice into her life.”
Why she TikToks: “It keeps me young,” says Lill, a grandmother of five and great-grandmother of one. “I’m 89 but I feel like 65.”