Costa freshman enters the world of TikTok teen-influencers

Since the 2020 TikTok “HypeHouse era”, the number of truly popular teen social media influencers and “houses” have gradually faded. However, last April, a group of female teen influencers got together and created The GlowHouse, a content creation group preaching inclusivity, self-love, and kindness. As The GlowHouse expanded, other content creation groups and ‘houses’ started to appear; inspiring Costa’s own EllaRose Kaylor, a freshman who has collaborated with her friends to create their own version of one.

Kaylor began her TikTok journey in October of 2025, posting lip-sync and dance videos with her two childhood best friends, twins Ava and Leah Clements.

The Clements sisters have been popular on social media for many years, accumulating over two million followers on Instagram and over 750k followers on TikTok, with multiple posts going viral and comments claiming they are “the most beautiful twins in the world”.

As Kaylor started posting, people recognized her from her content with the twins, leading to more traction and followers. Kaylor’s ‘get ready with me,’ dance, and sponsored content has earned her 326k followers on TikTok, and a verification and 59k followers on Instagram.

“Ava and Leah invited me to a JetHouse party, which was my first ever influencer party,” said Kaylor. “I met a lot of people there and made many influencer friends. Collaborating with others helped me gain followers.”

This influencer community mainly networks at parties, giving all the teens a chance to dress up, create content, and use each other’s platforms to expand their own reach. Yet, influencers must attend with caution as the parties can be overwhelming and stressful.

“You have to be careful about what you say and do at parties,” said Kaylor. “Almost everything is always being recorded because everyone wants to film as much content as possible.”

When making content at home, Kaylor earns commissions and money by posting promotional content for songs or products. Music marketing agencies trying to push their artist’s platforms contact influencers like Kaylor and pay them to create lip-syncing or dance content using the artist’s songs, contributing to creating trending dances and songs on TikTok.

“They give us very short deadlines, but it is nice to get paid and get sent clothing or other free things from it. All you have to do is talk about their product, or wear it in a video, or make a video using a certain song,” said Kaylor. “My brand deal with Aeropostale was probably my biggest one so far.”

An average teen influencer’s amount of followers can fall anywhere in between 50k to five million. Having 326k followers, Kaylor recognizes a slight hierarchy in how these follower differences show up at parties and friend groups.

“I feel like it’s often separated by creators with over or under a million followers,” said Kaylor. “I’ve noticed some highly followed friend groups will only really hang out with other people who match that follower count – everything seems like it’s kind of all about the followers.”

Being an influencer is a time-consuming career, and Kaylor is one of few teen influencers who attend an in-person public school in Los Angeles. Many other teen influencers are homeschooled and fly to Los Angeles every few weeks for parties and events.

“For people I know, their parents don’t even work anymore since their kid makes so much money, so it makes sense for them to do school online,” said Kaylor. “It must be crazy to provide for your family like that.”

In pursuit of furthering their social media careers, Kaylor and a few of her influencer friends, including Kaido Roberts, @kaidoleeroberts, and Sydney Thomas, @sydneytaleah, rented a space in Beverly Hills, and turned it into the “NXT” social club where influencers can hang out, create content, and host influencer parties. On Feb. 16, NXT held its first event, a Valentines’ Day Party, sponsored by clothing brand Windsor and jewelry brand EVRY Jewels.