Annemarie Rose is leaning on a sheet of glass, her hair stuck in a messy half ponytail, tracing the outline of a heart on its shiny surface. She breaks it, polishes its edges and engraves a simple message on its smooth surface: spit in my mouth. “Something hot for Valentine’s Day,” the description says in its TikTok video.
Commentators are made out, a heart full of desire fills the section. “WHERE CAN I BUY,” writes one viewer excited about the capitalization lock. Another usefully adds a background story: “I NEED THIS because they blocked me from telling my boyfriend to spit in my mouth and pull my hair out so sad.” Back in the real world, a stunned Annemarie watches as the numbers in her video soar. Update. 100 new followers. Update. 500 more. At the end of June, the video has about 954,000 views, with its account of a few hundred followers to more than 10,000.
For Annemarie, virality translated into more than just views and comments. He had a keen interest in his work as potential clients began queuing up. In one day, he said 2,000 people joined his mailing list, a number his total subscriptions had never touched. “The effect of that video was very powerful for my business,” he said. When he opened the mirror pre-orders, including the cheeky “spit in my mouth,” he says they sold out in 18 minutes (a fact I can personally attest to after not buying one).
“The effect of that video was very powerful for my business.”
His success through this video is the result of a combination of things: the timing of a collection of heart mirrors on Valentine’s Day and the half-joking, untwisted humor mark that pervades TikTok. But the platform is also key. TikTok is “an amazing place for artists,” he said, rather than platforms like Instagram or Twitter. “You can really see a lot of eyes on your work,” he said, noting the platform’s strange ability of the platform’s algorithm to feed users hyperspecific content tailored to their interests.
“There’s never been a more exciting time to be an artist,” he said. “There is no goalkeeper who prevents you from entering the world of art. All you have to do is make art, say you’re an artist and put it online.
If you want to go viral, now TikTok is your best bet. The constant agitation of trendy sounds, remixable jokes and the possibility of landing on anyone’s “for you” page places it above platforms like Twitter. There, true virality inevitably leads, at best, to the degeneration of your original message or, worse, to becoming the dreaded Twitter main character. For artists like Annemarie, platforms like Instagram are also in a constant state of free fall. “Instagram is very miserable for little artists,” he said. Over time, he has noticed that his analytics are drastically declining as Instagram boosts the visibility of pay per post. “Every time there’s a new Instagram update, it basically gets worse.”
“There’s no goalkeeper to stop you from entering the art world.”
Annemarie began selling her work to farmers markets, but quickly realized it was a difficult crowd for art. People are there to buy freshly baked bread and fruit above the supermarket quality, not mirrors to hide from your mom. “I don’t sell all my products in one market like I do online,” he says. “When I leave a collection online, I sell more than 60 mirrors in five minutes.”
A “spit in my mouth” mirror is the perfect bait for TikTok, where taboo trends are discussed as openly as the blue squares showing a new dance. The creators are not afraid and talk about everything from the struggles for mental health to their interest in shibari and father issues. It’s a joke-like exploration. In a popular trend, a girl exclaims “I would never let a man spit in my mouth. I don’t know why you all keep saying ‘oh, spit in my mouth, spit in my mouth’, that’s shit. .. “before the audio was reduced to a bunch of photos with whoever actually let them spit in their mouths. “There’s also a lot of conversation around ‘How do you express your needs to a couple?’ But then I also make funny sketches of it, ”says Annemarie.
Through the video platform, you can reach a wider audience located in different states or countries, and a thriving online business allows you to work from home, a key factor due to the chronic pain and migraines you suffer. “I have a bit of a work-pain balance,” he says. She describes her migraines as debilitating, so intense she can’t even get out of bed. “Being self-employed has allowed me to have flexibility to take time off,” she explains. “I really like working late in the evening; The optimal working time for me is like 20:00 to 2:00.
Despite the popularity of her online work, Annemarie says she finds it difficult to define success only within the parameters of cash flow. In the markets, he personally connects with other artists. But online, their products sell in a matter of minutes, especially the “spit in my mouth” mirror. “This is by far my best seller. It’s been for every collection.”
As for why is it so popular? “People like it as a joke, or in all seriousness, they want someone to see it and spit in their mouth.”