Each city seems to have them. Those golden neighborhoods with impossibly huge houses, a line of luxurious cars, gigantic courtyards, etc. But how? How do so many people have so much money?
That’s the question that Aaron Vankampen, a freelance explorer in Toronto, has been asking homeowners for months. The answers he has gotten have provided a lot of material for his TikTok account, which has grown a lot since he posted Part 1 in early November:
“Before that, I worked as a location explorer and also as a bartending agent,” explained Vankampen to MarketWatch. “The pandemic hit and I found myself with a lot of free time. I was looking for something to do with that time. “
Then, he let his curiosity be his guide and began to wander the upscale neighborhoods and ask questions. Your most viewed TikTok, which includes lawyers, Teslas TSLA,
and a “dream worker”, it was clicked an incredible 35 million times:
Vankampen’s rise to TikTok fame was meteoric, with more than 1 million followers in less than two months. As their reactions suggest, respondents were generally friendly and relaxed when approached by TikToker from door to door.
He said, however, that a strange problem arose. He was, for example, evicted from a property by a watchdog. “I learned and will never approach a house with a ‘care for the dog’ sign now, he said.
In the next phase of his social media plans, Vankampen is looking to expand his reach beyond Toronto, as travel restrictions have eased and visits homes around the world. Would he have the same warm welcome in, say, New York City as he did in Canada? We can find out one day.
In the meantime, he is also launching his YouTube channel, with the aim of expanding the interviews without TikTok’s time constraints and, ideally, earning some money in the process.
“My plan is to continue to inspire, if I can find a way to monetize while still inspiring my followers, then that is what I will do,” he said.