1 of 1 Vanessa Lopes at “BBB 24” — Photo: Reproduction/Globo Vanessa Lopes at “BBB 24” — Photo: Reproduction/Globo
In recent days, Vanessa has become one of the most discussed topics on the social network “X”, Twitter. Internet users questioned the mental health of the now BBB member and even the influencer's parents took a stand on the networks.
Meet Vanessa Lopes, a Tiktoker who already has almost 1 billion likes
Vanessa Lopes from Brasilia is 22 years old but grew up in Recife, Pernambuco. She is a dancer and content creator and has more than 30 million followers on her social networks.
He started recording dance videos as a hobby at the age of 13. The content spread on the Internet and is now characterized not only by viral choreographies but also by publications about makeup, fitness and family routines.
“I like to throw myself into anything that comes my way,” he says. Last year, in an interview with g1, Vanessa described herself as a communicative and sociable woman. According to her, her hobbies include reading books on psychology and studying the human mind.
Vanessa's story with TikTok began before the app itself existed.
In 2014, at the age of 13, she maintained a profile on the nowdefunct platform Musical.ly, a platform where users recorded and posted videos ranging from 15 seconds to a minute long, accompanied by music.
The Musical.ly profile was created in 2014 and sold to ByteDance in 2017, where it was named TikTok.
With the sale, everyone registered on Musical.ly was automatically integrated into the Chinese social network.
“For me it was like I hadn’t changed. “I’ve been recording TikTokstyle content since I was 13,” Vanessa concludes.
She simply continued recording because she enjoyed the activity and was able to practice what was known as the waist dance. “I did a lot of belly dancing and got references from girls who were famous in France and Spain.”
Back then, ten years ago, Vanessa was still in high school and used the app to communicate with friends. She posted three times a month: “When I remembered it, I rarely recorded it so my friends could see it.”
With the start of the pandemic, when Vanessa was already attending advertising school, the fun took on a serious tone. With more free time, she created a production plan.
“I got up early and shot. I was doing four or five Tiktoks a day and posting them.”
This is how his relationship with the app began to change. She says that, even without realizing it, she already had the habit of paying attention to how the platform works.
“I saw a lot of content, what went viral, what I thought was cool, what my friends and the people I followed were doing,” he says.
The dancer continued this routine for three months until she was found by Chango Digital, the agency that still represents her to this day. The contract with the company was signed in 2020 and thus TikTok became a source of income and a showcase that led to it being seen by various brands.
From then on, all the advertising contracts he concluded passed through the hands of his father and the agency. “They have their share (in contracts) and I have mine,” Vanessa says.
When what had previously been fun turned into work, combining studies and recording routines proved unfeasible and she dropped out of her advertising studies to devote herself exclusively to her new career.
Algorithm and mental health
In an interview with g1, Vanessa Lopes even said that the production and publishing routine has already had a negative impact in the past.
“I put pressure on myself for a long time. I lost my mind a little at the end,” he remembers. “It's like a comedian, you want the guy to do a new joke every day. The guy can't stand it. Something like that does not exist. You study, research, think, organize.”
His relationship with TikTok has changed over the years, as have his concerns about his profile on the social network. Regarding g1, Vanessa said that her biggest challenge is not losing her follower base.
“Really? Our biggest fear for those who grow up quickly has always been to stay. The difficult thing is not to grow up or to become known. The difficult thing is to stay there,” he admits.
“That’s something that’s really on people’s minds. I worked hard to understand that I have my niche, I have my name, I am here. I have to work, but for myself. Before, I was a heavy slave to the platform.”