These 10 TikTok Stars Broke Out In February

Christian Hetrick

Christian Hetrick is dot.LA's Entertainment Tech Reporter. He was formerly a business reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer and reported on New Jersey politics for the Observer and the Press of Atlantic City.

These 10 TikTok Stars Broke Out In February

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Kat Clark is known for sharing healthy recipes and funny videos with her daughter—but it was a clip about mouthwash that vaulted her to TikTok stardom.

Two years ago, Clark recorded herself pouring cheaper mouthwash into an empty bottle of Listerine as a prank on her husband; the joke was that while he hates buying cheap products, he can’t even tell the difference. “White lies I tell my husband,” the caption read.


The video amassed nearly 1 million views and, along with some viral clips of her cooking, gave Clark a substantial TikTok following. The 35-year-old from Australia now has more than 1 million followers on the Culver City-based video-sharing platform. And according to new data from Santa Monica-based Famous Birthdays, Clark’s popularity continued to surge during the month of February.

“Every time I step out of the house, people are like, ‘Oh my god, aren’t you from TikTok?’” Clark told dot.LA. “It's still kind of hitting home for me.”

Famous Birthdays, which launched 10 years ago as a sort of Wikipedia-for-internet personalities, ranks online influencers based on the activity on its platform, which is visited by tens of millions of users monthly. Using that data, Famous Birthdays identified Clark as one of 10 TikTok stars that jumped highest in their rankings last month. Clark’s ranking climbed from No. 11,569 to No. 1,045 between Feb. 1 and March 1.

The rankings, largely driven by search queries on Famous Birthdays’ website, are an indicator of fan engagement, according to Famous Birthday founder Evan Britton. In Clark’s case, fans are not only watching and commenting on her videos, but are now taking time to look up her bio on Famous Birthdays, Britton noted. The company sells its data insights to social media platforms, talent agencies and brands looking for clues about influencers on the rise.

“They're a great real-time measure of popularity and culture,” Britton said of Famous Birthdays’ influencer rankings.

When asked what may have driven her climbing popularity last month, Clark noted that she recently committed to posting at least one video per day. In late January, she launched a new series of videos in which she styles her daughter’s hair, which racked up millions of views each.

“I think people love those videos because they're not scripted,” Clark said. “It's more just showing our personality, doing what we would do normally every day and just talking to the camera.”

In addition to the Famous Birthdays data, there is another sign that Clark is on the rise—albeit an unwanted one. In one of her most recent videos, she mentioned that fans had showed up to her house uninvited. “Please don’t do that ever again,” she pleaded.

Here are the 10 TikTok stars that had breakout months in February, according to Famous Birthdays (list sorted by highest jump in ranking):

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LA Venture: B Capital’s Howard Morgan on What To Look For in Potential Founders

Decerry Donato

Decerry Donato is a reporter at dot.LA. Prior to that, she was an editorial fellow at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.

LA Venture: B Capital’s Howard Morgan on What To Look For in Potential Founders
Provided by LAV

On this episode of the LA Venture podcast, B Capital Group General Partner and Chair Howard Morgan discusses his thoughts on early stage investing and the importance of company ownership.


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Mullen Automotive Pays Millions to Settle Lawsuit with Qiantu

David Shultz

David Shultz reports on clean technology and electric vehicles, among other industries, for dot.LA. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Outside, Nautilus and many other publications.

Mullen Automotive Pays Millions to Settle Lawsuit with Qiantu
Image Courtesy of Mullen Automotive

Like a zombie from the grave, Mullen Automotive’s electric sports car grift lives once more. Earlier this week, the Southern Californian company announced that it had resolved its contract disputes with Chinese manufacturer Qiantu and would begin to “re-design” and “re-engineer” the DragonFLY K50 platform for sale in the United States.

On the surface (or if you just read the press release) this would seem to be excellent news for the Californian EV startup. But the saga of the Mullen/Qiantu partnership is long, and in the context of their shared history, the deal’s terms look considerably less favorable for Mullen.

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