The Day My Grandma Accidentally Became a TikTok Star (And Why She’s Better at It Than Me)

It all started on a Tuesday, when I made the grave mistake of trying to teach Grandma Mabel how to “Google the weather.” To be fair, she’d been pestering me for weeks. “Claire-Bear,” she’d say, waving her flip phone like a talisman, “this thing keeps calling me a snack. Is it broken?” (Turns out, her bingo club’s group chat had autocorrected “soup” to “sup, hot stuff” again.) But I never imagined that my half-hearted tutorial would lead to her accidentally uploading a TikTok video titled “Grandma’s Kitchen Tips???”—a 45-second masterpiece of chaos that would dethrone me as the family’s sole “digital native.”

The video began innocently enough. Grandma had mistaken my TikTok account for her camera roll, aiming to show me her new microwaving hack. “See?” she said, holding up a teacup adorned with delicate roses. “You nuke your leftovers in the cup! Saves dishes!” Never mind that the teacup was vintage, or that the microwave now smelled like burnt ego. What followed was pure magic: Grandma, in her neon-pink apron (a gift from my “rebellious phase”), began polka-dancing to silent music—her hearing aid was off, so she couldn’t hear the polka track I’d queued days earlier. Halfway through, she segued into a rant about meatloaf. “Leftovers too dry? Mash ’em with mayonnaise and slap it on your face! Exfoliates and moisturizes!”

By morning, the video had 2 million views.

“Why are all these children calling me ‘Queen of Chaos’?” Grandma demanded, squinting at her newfound comments section over her bifocals. “And what’s a ‘hashtag Geriatric Giggles’?”

I wish I could say it stopped there. But Grandma, it turns out, was a natural. While my own TikTok account—@ClaireBearTrends—languished with 47 followers (shoutout to Mom and @FakeLashes4Less), Grandma’s shaky clips of crocheting sweaters for squirrels (“Darn things look chilly!”) and roasting “low-cut ketchup bottles” (“Who designed this? A hooligan!”) birthed the “Grannycore” aesthetic. Followers dubbed her “The Unintentional ASMR Queen” for her ASMR-like rage-whispers about mismatched socks.

Then came the livestream incident.

“ALEXA, PLAY LAUNDRY SOUNDS!” Grandma bellowed at the smart speaker I’d gifted her for Christmas. When Alexa replied, “Playing ‘Ocean Sounds’”, Grandma scoffed. “LAZY SPARK PLUG!” She then wrestled the device into a quilted cozy (“It’s naked, Claire! Have some decency!”), all while ranting about “kids these days” outsourcing chores to robots. The clip hit 10 million views in a day. Suddenly, brands were sliding into my DMs: “Would Mabel endorse our arthritis cream?” “Retro prune juice collab?”

Grandma, of course, had conditions. “Tell ’em I’ll do it,” she said, “if they throw in a lifetime supply of Werther’s Originals.”

By Thanksgiving, she’d hired my 14-year-old brother’s Minecraft YouTuber friend, Ethan, as her “manager” (“He’s a businessman, Claire!”), started a feud with a 19-year-old influencer who dissed her meatloaf scrub (“Sweetie, your pores are begging for my recipe”), and somehow landed a gig judging a TikTok dance battle at the county fair. Her feedback? “Too much hip-wiggling. Save that for the bedroom!”

The irony? Grandma still thinks TikTok is a clock app. “It’s nice they added the music,” she mused, watching a compilation of herself line-dancing in the cereal aisle to Lil Nas X. “But why does it keep calling me iconic? Is that like… a fancy ick?”

Meanwhile, I became her full-time camerawoman, filming her critiques of modern packaging (“Who needs two hands to open a granola bar? Ridiculous!”) and her “Cooking with Common Sense” series, where she substitutes quinoa with crushed Saltines. (“It’s practical, Claire!”) My pride? Obliterated. My humility? Fed a steady diet of Grandma’s meatloaf scrub (it’s… gritty).

Last week, she hit 5 million followers. To celebrate, she livestreamed herself teaching her 90-year-old boyfriend, Harold, the “WAP” dance. (“Watermelon, Apples, Pineapple, dear! Get your mind out of the gutter!”) The comments exploded with “I STAN A LEGEND” and “Protect this woman at all costs.”

I finally deleted my TikTok account. There’s no competing with a 78-year-old in Crocs and a sunhat made of duct tape, waving to her “internet friends” from her La-Z-Boy throne. “Don’t forget to moisturize your elbows, you heathens!” she barked in her latest video, tossing a Werther’s at the camera. “And always read the fine print!”

So, here I am—a 26-year-old “content creator” turned glorified hype woman for the internet’s favorite accidental icon. And honestly? I’ve never been prouder.