It can be interesting to know a “celebrity,” no matter how minor, personally. You’re always going to compare the person everyone else knows and loves to the person you meet and greet socially and/or in private, and in some cases, it can be jarring.
These 15 people know or have met some online “celebrities” and are ready and willing to talk about those disparities (or lack thereof!) below!
15. At least she’s miserable.
She owes me money and stole a big chunk of my material in her quest for fame, but the whole world thinks she’s about the most wonderful person to ever fart in our atmosphere.
I try to quell my pettiness with the knowledge that internet love isn’t real love, and that she’s actually pretty miserable and hateful in real life.
14. The attention went to his head.
I knew a guy in high school who posted a video about how “Obama doesn’t love America” or something like that. The video got a few million views, and he started thinking he was the next Ben Shapiro or something. He gained a moderate social media following and got on a few talk shows. He was on Fox News a few times.
This inflated his ego to dangerous levels. He actually started coming to school wearing a suit and tie, like he was some sort of elected official. He tried hitting on girls constantly. He was always extremely condescending whenever he talked to people. Everyone hated him, including the teachers. He was so hated that my physics teacher made an exception to the “no calling out specific former students” rule and told us all about the stupid stuff he did.
Basically, the attention went to his head. Last I heard of him, he was at risk of getting kicked out of his college because he was at the Capitol Riot.
13. They knew he would make something of himself.
I went to college with ProZD and knew him pretty well. Worked on some projects together.
He was a super nice guy and he was incredibly funny, to the point that you knew between his humor and his voice acting talent that he was going to make something of himself.
12. That poor kid.
A former friend of mine became “Instagram famous” after she had her first baby. She pulled the whole “organic, spiritual, crunchy mama” routine.
Online, she portrayed herself as this devoted mother who put her daughter first in everything. She constantly talked about the organic, natural, hippy lifestyle she had adopted to raise her daughter. Every post had some sort of “be nice and love everyone” vibe.
The reality? She was a major bitch to everyone and had her parents babysitting almost every night of the week so she could party and consume massive amounts of drugs.
She’d spend all night drunk and stoned out of her mind, pick her daughter up from her parents’ at dawn, post some Instagram bullshit about how she was “up with the little one to watch the miracle of the sunrise,” and then promptly drop her daughter in front of the TV with cookies so she could sleep on the couch all day.
11. A lovely person.
My brother dated a beauty lifestyle influencer for about a year, she had around 250k following, she really is a lovely person, very down to earth, when they broke up, she still stayed close with my mother.
When covid hit, she decided she wanted to do something else with her life, so she is now currently working with Autistic children, and training to become a teacher in that field, she still does all her socials but not as much, she says it’s empty, not fulfilling and the more followers you get the lonelier you feel.
My brother currently is going through a very rough patch in his personal life, and she is now helping him get threw it, so we are hoping that there is something still there.
10. A mean soul.
One of my students has 100k tiktok followers and she is honestly just not a nice or good human being.
I’ve tried hard to see a silver lining or something ANYTHING good about the girl, but she’s a mean soul.
9. It can be super toxic.
I think this is different during different eras of social media. I know several people who, if you were on Tumblr in the early 2010s, you would have absolutely known– most of them are normal now (lol)– but because of the way the tumblr/livejournal era was, a lot of people had completely siloed online lives and didn’t have to worry about getting recognized or curating their normal life for their online presence.
Plenty of people who were infamous shitstirrers, trolls, or outright toxic bullies and harassers around 2009 or so have public-facing careers now.
8. Interesting to observe.
I’m seeing a trend here from these comments: it sounds like the folks who got famous because of an actual talent/passion (carpentry, cars, makeup etc) tend to be more normal & genuinely good people…whereas the folks who are famous for fame’s sake tend to be awful in real life. It’s just interesting to observe.
7. Definitely fake.
Judgmental and hypocritical. Would shame others for doing the same things she does.
Definitely fake and also would do the not so subtle brag about how much she was making on her channel.
6. He’s really into Pokemon.
I know an Instagram “fitness model”. Does that count?
We met at a gym and became acquaintances after repeated run-ins. He works in public works for a neighbouring city by day and does the online modeling thing as a side gig. Not super famous, but he has several thousand followers so far (although I’ve never seen his face – or any other part of him – in any promos).
He seems very normal and grounded and is REALLY into Pokemon.
5. Don’t bother debating.
I know a TikTok star who just so happened to go to my high school. She’s well out of school now, and dropped college. She was a superstar in our dance program, and now she lives in LA pursuing a dance career for big rappers and pop stars.
She’s had some small gigs but nothing too big. Incredibly famous on TikTok, well past the 10M mark now. I didn’t know her too well, but I know that the persona on her social media is more or less her, however, she was very gossip-y, she wanted to tell and know everything.
Overall, she was still nice as long as you weren’t debating with her, she was ALWAYS right.
4. Scared of her.
I know a girl who has a really popular TikTok page. She pretty much got popular for being pretty.
I think she is one of the only people I would describe as a genuinely horrible person. Even before she got popular, she was incredibly selfish and mean and sociopathic. She talked every single one of her friends behind their backs and did some really horrific things to people.
I remember her trying to get a 12 year old sent to a psychiatric hospital (we were 18) because she simply didn’t like her.
She’s done so many genuinely f**ked up things to myself and other people, at some point someone is going to come forward. I would, but I’m scared of her and I’m scared to bring her attention to me.
3. A real prankster.
I had an employee who was vine popular.
He was always playing pranks on us. He was a pretty funny guy in general and I liked him and tolerated the shenanigans as long as no safety rules were being broken.
He ended up getting a sponsorship and getting a bunch of face tattoos and moving to Japan. I heard he started smoking heroin which I didn’t even know was a thing though so not good in the end.
2. A happy ending for a good person.
I went to high school with someone who has 7 million tik tok followers. She’s known now for her vocals, both singing and beatboxing. Back in school she wasn’t really an outstanding musician. She was good but not someone we would think would be famous for it. She’s clearly gotten much much better now.
As far as I can tell her personality is exactly the same as it used to be. Outgoing, jovial, friendly, etc.
1. Pretty much fake.
Am friends with someone with around 100k tik tok followers (not insanely popular but still good). I knew her for around 10 years due to us being in the same schools and sports. She was not a team player, horrible to work with, self centered and spoiled. She joined tik tok with the sole intention of becoming popular to gain sponsors despite her family being rich.
In real life her name is known around the school but she is not a very popular person despite her persona on the internet making it seem as if she was. She once got scolded for wearing colored contacts in school (dress codes) and promoting a $2k investment scheme to her mostly underaged audience. She then went on to complain that it was a undeserved scolding because her audience should check the website and determine that it wasn’t a scam by themselves before investing and that her colored contacts were fine as it was a sponsor. If anyone asks about her tiktok or youtube endeavors she would shut down and rage at the person asking.
She remains the same till this day, the epitome of “whatever people pose as on the internet is never who they are in real life”.
Having been fortunate enough to meet a famous person or two in my life, I can 100% believe all of these stories – good and bad – are true.
Are you acquainted with someone personally who has a large online following? Tell us about your own experience down in the comments!
