The dawning of the TikTok ‘cult’
A savvy former Googler has masterminded a TikTok “cult”—her word—with nearly 2 million followers. They call themselves: “Step Chickens.”
Melissa Ong leveraged the popularity of a chicken suit she wore for TikTok videos, which wound through an elaborate string of video comments to the idea of “step-chickens,” which she thought was “fucking hilarious.” Long story short, she is now the “Mother Hen,” her profile photo is everybody’s avatar, and the step-chickens app made number 10 on the App Store last week. The New York Times’s Taylor Lorenz has the full tale.
