A North Vancouver teen has become a TikTok queen in Italy, garnering more than 400,000 followers on the social media app in just a couple of months.
Natasha Nock, a St. Thomas Aquinas grad who goes by the handle “Knockknockwhosthere” on TikTok, reaches hundreds of thousands, and sometimes millions, of viewers with each of her daily posts that show her learning to speak Italian.
It’s all been kind of a wild ride for the 19-year-old whose parents are very un-Italian – they met in Canada and they boast English and Trinidadian heritage – and who had quite a rudimentary grasp of the language when she started posting.
“I’ve only taken two semesters of Italian at university and it's like Italian 101, Italian 102, so it's like the beginner level completely,” said Nock. “My parents can't speak a word of Italian, they don't understand any of the videos that I make. No one in my family is Italian.”
Her videos, however, have taken off in Italy, garnering her a loyal following. Nock, who is currently studying marketing at UBC, said she has always enjoyed experimenting with video.
“I was that kid in high school that made video projects for like everything,” she said. When TikTok came around – the latest social media sensation that allows users to post short videos of themselves – Nock was quick to sign up. She joined in December, and by February had around 5,000 followers for her initial videos, all of which were done in English.
Nock is also a language nut – she already knows French and Spanish – and so she decided a couple of months ago to make a TikTok post about the work she was doing in her university Italian class. To her surprise, the post took off.
@knocknockwhosthere Mad respect to anyone who speaks Italian hahah ##fyp ##italian ##langauges ##studying ##study ##facts ##mepracticing ##selflove ##cinematics
♬ original sound - knocknockwhosthere
“I can see where the video gets shared, and it somehow made its way to Italy and I got a lot of Italian followers,” she said. “They were really surprised that someone who speaks English would want to speak Italian. So they were like, super willing to help. And then from there, I just continued to make videos every single day.”
Her following grew rapidly, and two months later her account has more than 410,000 followers, 10.6-million likes, and a recent video was viewed more than two million times and generated nearly 30,000 comments.
“The numbers are so crazy that it's kind of hard to wrap your head around,” she said. “I think it's like absolutely insane, but it's really, really fun.”
The video-making process doesn’t call for an elaborate setup or video crew.
“I literally make them in my bathroom,” she said. “It’s a TikTok thing to film in your bathroom because it has really good lighting. And, also, I can’t really go outside right now. So my videos are literally just like me in my bedroom or me in my bathroom, talking to the mirror.”
Whatever her secret is, it’s working. The videos are fun and charming, but Nock admits that there is some luck involved in the process of becoming an Italian TikTok sensation from her bathroom in Canada.
“I think I've been super lucky. I guess I somehow, like, figured out the algorithm, because my engagement is very, very high. So I know that almost every video will reach at least 200,000 people, which is just kind of a crazy number to think about.”
@knocknockwhosthere Duetti questo video se questo è vero!##perte ##siblingcheck ##petlife ##italiano ##roma ##italiana ##italia ##italy ##cena ##napoli ##perugia ##venezia
♬ Domani Ci Passa (acoustic version) - Ludwig
The experience has also helped her learn the language, she said.
“Now that I've literally spoken in Italian for like an hour every day for like three months, I’d say it's improved dramatically. I would hope so.”
Her followers are always eager to help her with tips about the language and little grammatical corrections, which has been a boon for her university classes.
“I'll literally get them to help with my Italian assignments,” she said with a laugh, adding that having 400,000 followers on TikTok hasn’t made a big impression on her Italian professor.
“My professor, he's like, I love him to death, but he doesn't really understand social media. So I showed him [the TikTok videos] all semester and he like, kind of got it. But also, didn't.”
The experience has also helped her connect with people who have been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. Early on in the global crisis, Italy stood out as one of the countries hit the hardest by the coronavirus. The country went into a strict national quarantine not long after Nock’s TikTok videos started taking off. Interacting with Italian people under those conditions has been both heartbreaking and heartwarming, said Nock.
“My audience in Italy were dealing with it way before we were in Canada,” she said. “I’ve learned so much about the situation in Italy just from talking to people one-on-one. Obviously it is extremely sad and I feel so bad for them because it is intense over there with the lockdown.”
Many of her followers, however, have told her that her videos have helped cheer them up in challenging circumstances, she said.
“I think I’ve been able to have a positive impact on people who are going through a rough time right now, which has been super fulfilling for me.”
