Written by Maggie Samples // Photo by Balazs Balassa
A Harding student has gone viral on TikTok for a series of videos filmed in her dorm room, with a video reaching over 4 million views.
Sophomore transfer student Maggie Tackitt created a TikTok series opening 14 moving out gifts from her mother. Tackitt had never gone to school away from home, and her mother left her small presents to open every day. She made a TikTok for each day and posted it to her account.
“I like making videos,” Tackitt said. “I’ve always liked making videos.”
Before her series went viral, Tackitt had 150 followers. She now has over 13,000 followers. The videos were getting thousands of likes overnight, and people were waiting for the daily videos.
“At that point, I was overwhelmed,” Tackitt said, “but I kept making videos.”
In the process of meeting other students as a transfer, Tackitt met people who had already seen, liked or saved her videos. She used her viral videos as an icebreaker while meeting people on campus.
“It’s kind of a lot of pressure,” Tackitt said, “because now I feel like I have to find something else to do. I mean obviously I don’t need their attention, but it made people really happy, and I need to keep that up, I think.”
Tackitt’s roommate, junior transfer Kaycee Hatley said Tackitt was completely surprised by her mother’s gift, and she thinks that was one of the things that made it a really good gift.
“The first couple of weeks away from home in a completely new environment can be pretty overwhelming,” Hatley said. “Her mom clearly foresaw the challenges she would face as she adjusted, so she put in the effort to give her daughter something to look forward to each day when she woke up.”
Hatley said she enjoyed the excitement of a new gift each morning and the progress of the TikTok series. She said the majority of people had supportive comments about the videos.
Lori Sloan, assistant professor of communication, said bad things go viral easily and can ruin a person’s reputation. She said she was glad Tackitt’s viral series was a happy thing.
“I’m proud that it’s something that people can say, ‘This is a girl from Harding,’” Sloan said, “that it’s something sweet and fun that her mom did for her and that it isn’t something bad.”
