York Senior Has Nearly 2 Million TikTok Followers

ELMHURST, IL — 2020 has been a tough year for many. But the year has treated York High School senior Sofie SanFilippo well. Since last spring, she has become something of a TikTok sensation, attracting 1.9 million followers.

With videos less than a minute, SanFilippo regularly draws hundreds of thousands of views daily. For one of her Wednesday videos, she acted out the different types of students in a school. It drew 200,000 views.

She got started on TikTok last December, but her following surged in March after she attended the Playlist Live conference in Orlando for TikTok and YouTube creators. Soon after, she started getting hundreds of thousands of views for her videos and occasionally, more than a million. Her following, she said, is mostly girls 10 to 14, but the demographic of boys is growing.

A competitive dancer for six years, the 17-year-old recently axed that activity from her schedule. "I got sick of it," she told Patch.

Now, SanFilippo, daughter of Martha and Louis SanFilippo, is spending more time on her TikTok videos. She also posts to Instagram (84,300 followers) and YouTube (43,000 subscribers).

Even though TikTok videos are short, they require planning.

"I do relatable videos. I do points of views, funny or serious," she said. "I'll do my planning at night."

She used to post more dancing videos, but she finds that skits and list-type videos attract more views. A few of the more recent ones are titled "Things we all did as kids," "Types of friends," "Types of people at sleepovers" and "Things to do with your friend groups." One of the recent skits that got nearly a million views is about her being stranded in a store, with a green-screen background of a store.

"It's a lot of pressure," SanFilippo told Patch. "If a video doesn't do well, I feel like I'm not good enough. Then I think that a lot of people don't have this platform."

After high school, she would like to attend Columbia College in Chicago to study broadcasting or social media marketing.

She is considering moving more to YouTube, which has a bigger audience.

"My goal is to collaborate with other creators," she said. "I really want to move to Los Angeles and keep creating and get paid for it."

In an email, her mother, Martha, said a talent management company reached out to her daughter and signed with her for a year's contract.

"One reason (her following) grew fast is that she took social media seriously and learned about the algorithms, researched topics and ideas for her specific demographics, saw the success of The D'Amelio's, and some others and pursued her dream," her mother said.

She said her daughter is "positive, relatable and a funny role model, which we really need especially in these dark times," Martha said.

In June, York High senior Sofie SanFilippo released a YouTube video called "20 Facts About Me." Here are some of them:

• "I am pretty obsessed with TikTok. I go on there for six hours a day."
• "I love to play video games."
• "I did competitive dance for six years. I started when I was 10."
• "My favorite season is fall. Summer is too hot."
• "I'm allergic to peanut butter, but I eat it anyway.
• "I'm lactose intolerant."
• "I absolutely love blankets."
• "I absolutely love coffee."
• "A few years ago, I was able to meet DJ Khaled and Snoop Dogg at my friend's Halloween party, which was super awesome." In a Patch interview, she said her dad's friend had a party in Los Angeles and hired Snoop and DJ Khalid.
• "I love slime. My mom doesn't like it. She doesn't let me make it, but she thinks I make a mess."
• "I was obsessed with bows... I wore them every day in middle school. That's a little embarrassing, but it's OK."
• "I love dogs. Dogs are so cute." She added that "unfortunately" she has two cats — one she likes, the other she does not.