![]() ![]() Originally called Musical.ly, TikTok launched in China in 2016. If you haven’t either, here’s what you need to know. Other than chuckling at Trump impersonator Sarah Cooper, I hadn’t focused on TikTok much. “You? You don’t know anything about TikTok.” He was right. When I told my 16-year-old son, Lincoln, about my assignment, he shook his head sadly. If I were 19 and had her life, I wouldn’t call me back either. Kissing her cute local boyfriend, 20-year-old Dawson Day. ![]() Oddly, thanks to TikTok, I can see exactly what LaVerne is doing when she’s not calling me back. Both parents promised to pass on my number-“I’ll have her call you”-but I spent four weeks staring at my phone. ![]() To be fair, it was the holidays and Zoe went to live with friends while Pemberton fought off COVID. I called her father, Doug Wright, multiple times and her mother, Debbe Pemberton, so often I felt like a stalker. Either way, millions of fans-and critics-will be watching, because whether you worship Zoe LaVerne or disdain her, it’s hard to look away.įor someone who’s always on the phone, LaVerne is hard to reach. Propelled by beauty and ambition, hindered by immaturity and defiance, Zoe LaVerne is poised to either blast off or implode before she can legally order a drink. On the same night, she posted a sweet slumber party–style TikTok noshing veggie straws with a friend who held up a puppy, and LaVerne did a sultry, lip-licking lip-synch to the lyrics, “I don’t like good bitches, they just not it/I only f*** with whores, I’m toxic.” This is the precarious faultline where she teeters, between doe-eyed angel and “bad bitch,” child and adult. While most of us are all too happy to forget our angsty teenage years, LaVerne records and posts intimate moments-boyfriend kisses, little-girl meltdowns, jealous rants-enduring the growing pains of adolescence in real time in front of followers from Fort Wayne to Qatar. Please let me breathe.”īut a few days later, LaVerne was back and badder than ever-sexy, sardonic, middle fingers raised, TikToking in a black tutu and fishnets to The Black Eyed Peas’ “Where Is The Love?”įor the past month, I have been obsessively following LaVerne’s TikTok feed the way other people check their stock portfolios or the weather-with a mixture of awe and horror. Like, I get it, but you guys are making me out to be such an awful, horrible person when I am genuinely trying my best to be happy and grow from the things that I’ve done and be a better person and I can’t do that when all you guys do is tear me down and make me out to be something I am not. “I understand I’m the most hated person on the entire platform. She apologized in videos that swerved from tearful to defiant. The heat and hate got so bad that last fall, LaVerne announced she was taking a break from social media and checking into a hospital. LaVerne’s rise has been both plagued and propelled by controversy: breakups with her former boyfriend, accusations that 19-year-old fellow TikTok star Cody Orlove physically abused her, a contretemps with TikTok diva Charli D’Amelio, and an explosive scandal when LaVerne kissed a 13-year-old boy and was accused of “grooming,” a term for enticing a minor into having sex. She tapes her performances, most a fleeting 15 seconds, and uploads them on the social media app TikTok, where her followers, known as Zonuts, leave loving messages like “Ur so pretty” and “YOU KILLED THIS QUEEEEENNNNN.” Since she began posting at age 15, the Greenwood resident has amassed 17 million followers and last year earned $800,000.īut fame, like adolescence, hasn’t always been easy. Sometimes friends dance backup, like a fun shadow, as if you’re seeing double, only Zoe is the one with flawless skin and impossibly blonde hair. Most days, she wears sweatpants and cropped tops. She dances in her bedroom, in the snow, in parking garages after dark, her limbs liquid and sinewy, like she’s all muscle, no bones, booty dancing to Mickey Rose and Popp Hunna, songs with explicit lyrics and F-bombs. ![]()
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