Yahoo News Inside the Mind of the Most Creative TikTok Star You’ve Never Heard of
Dressed as a mom in a red bathrobe and a black shower cap, Victor Stewart walks into the frame. He cracks a belt and lip-synchs a popular line from Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness: “Black Bolt can destroy you with one whisper from his mouth.” As he gears up to strike his hypothetical child, the kid’s grandma (also Stewart, but in a gray bob and floral shirt) asks, “What belt?”
The belt transforms into a bunch of roses. Ominous music plays. The mom backs away.
Someone’s loving grandma has, once again, saved them from a world of agony.
This is the kind of dramatic tension—realized through a combination of immediately recognized trends, strategic wardrobe choices, and imaginative scenarios—that makes Stewart’s videos so captivating.
The Philadelphia native boasts a combined 554,000 followers on TikTok and Instagram, where he’s known as @ripesharwarmareams and @djvickyv121, respectively. It’s a modest following in the era of professional content creators, but one that is actively growing with every surreal and hysterical skit he posts. Speaking via Zoom on a weekday afternoon, Stewart dons a near-constant smile and chooses his words carefully, a far cry from his usually eccentric and confrontational characters.
“I was shy growing up,” he tells The Daily Beast. “I was very much a quiet kid in the classroom who did what the teacher told him to do. I would go to school and I would go home.”
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Two days after our interview, Stewart will post a clip where he plays a rabid monkeypox patient in a hospital gown. (Note this is a far cry from what actually happens during a monkeypox infection.) He jumps up and down on a bed before a nurse stuns him with a shock stick. The rowdy bit will be set to the viral sound effect of a police officer in Ohio screaming, “Sir, get down” over and over again. It will rack up tens of thousands of likes.
Of course, it’s much easier to act a fool for a phone propped up in your apartment than for real-life strangers, but the warm embrace of a social media platform starved for never-ending laughs isn’t the only thing responsible for his recent extroversion. It’s also a consequence of growing up and moving away from home, says Stewart, who was raised by his late mother in a strict Muslim household along with his younger brother.
“I don’t know what I am right now,” he says of his religion. “I fully accepted that I am a gay man, but all my life growing up inside the mosque, I was told you can’t be gay and be a Muslim, so now I’m trying to find out where I fit in.”
Describing himself as a “massive science person,” he discovered his passion for performance after taking a dance class in high school. He now minors in dance at West Chester University, where his main focus is biochemistry. (When asked about his major, he clarifies: “I don’t think I want to be any kind of doctor.”) Transitioning into adulthood has allowed him a sense of liberty that felt elusive as a kid. He’s picked up thrifting, and he’s getting better at doing his makeup. As it happens, these hobbies intersect perfectly with his new side gig as a social media creator, as he imbues his characters with a verisimilitude that most other people recording from their bedrooms don’t bother with.
The 21-year-old’s journey to budding online stardom is a familiar one by now, recalling the launches of Sarah Cooper, Meg Stalter, and countless other comedians who decided to get online and get creative during the COVID-19 pandemic. In December 2020, while holed up at his aunt’s house for winter break, Stewart started posting videos on Snapchat, Instagram, and, eventually, TikTok.
“One video that went really viral was a video of me dancing to, like, a trap music song, and people thought it was funny,” he says. “That’s when the followers started to come in.”
Followers begot more engagement, including from internet-bred pop star Lil Nas X. “[It was] this video of me poking fun at New Yorkers and how they walk around in big black puffer jackets,” Stewart recalls. “He commented. I forget what he said though.”
It’s rare to come across a content creator that inspires anything beyond a chuckle and a quick swipe down, but Stewart’s blend of the bizarre and intimately relatable lights up a pleasure center that makes it hard not to return to his page. And though the algorithm certainly helps, his hilariously contorted facial expressions and seemingly never-ending stream of ideas have cultivated a loyal audience that hypes up every video and remains rapt by his artistic impulses.
“Ur content is so constant and yet it never misses,” one person wrote underneath a video of Stewart playing a vegan protester outside a Chick-fil-A who taunts the chain’s owners by mimicking two boys kissing with his hand. Yet another fan observed: “Bros creativity is always on another level.”
Many of them want to know one thing: How does he do it?
“I might see something while I’m on the train and think that will make for a funny TikTok, or think about what I’ll have for dinner and I’ll have a memory pop in from someone in my childhood,” Stewart explains.
“It just comes to me,” he adds. “I wish I had a better way to explain it.”
While he’s under no obligation to give away his secrets, he does have to decide what he wants to do after he graduates in two years. He’s had a few brand sponsorship offers, but nothing major enough to warrant leaving school. Whether it’s cosmetology school or a full-time career as an entertainer, his small but energetic fanbase has given him the confidence to explore more avenues than he ever thought possible.
“I feel more myself than I’ve ever been, and I have such a sweet, loving community. It just makes me really happy. I feel really happy right now.”
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