Pig husk trimmer? TikTok can't get enough of these accidental influencers' unique jobs
Maria Jimenez Moya, USA TODAY
5 min read
Out of all the hopeful social media influencers, these five TikTokers didn't plan on being famous. Instead, their massive social followings and popular videos are the results of their unusual jobs.
Some of these creators fulfilled a childhood dream with their unique career paths, but others stumbled into their professions by accident.
One trims animals' teeth. Another transforms into a real-life mystical creature. There's an artist whose masterpieces help find missing children and a shearer trying to change perceptions.
"It gave me like such a huge platform to be able to connect with not just mermaids, but like all kinds of people who really didn't know that the mermaid community existed. They're just kind of blown away that anybody can do this," professional mermaid Stephanie Baker told USA TODAY.
Professional mermaid
On TikTok, Baker's better known as Mermaid Serenity. With 1.8 million followers on TikTok, Baker shows videos of her "mermaiding" at the beaches of Hawaii where she's lived for the past 10 years. Some of her mermaid videos have as many as 26 million views.
Baker stumbled across the unique job by complete accident. She was an extra on a TV show that hired professional mermaids. From there she went on to perform at hotel shows and create video content. Her journey "under the sea" also led to modeling gigs for makeup brands such as KVD and Urban Decay.
Also, being a mermaid is not cheap. The mermaid tails Baker wears can cost up to $10,000.
"I just like feeling magical," Baker told USA TODAY. "Every unrealistic dream that every child has, you're able to do it if you really want to. I can make money being a mermaid... that's like the most insane thing in the world.
Prop builder
Frankly Built, or Frank Pillar, recreates your favorite prop from movies and video games. In addition to being in the military, Pillar spends his time as a content creator, garnering notice from social media viewers for doing things like building a functioning Iron Man suit from scratch.
Pillar is self-taught, learning everything he knows from watching YouTube tutorials. He attributes his interest in Marvel to his dad and his passion for re-creating these prompts to his years living in Japan. Pillar has racked up a following of 1.6 million on TikTok and his videos have had as many as 8.9 million views.
"Even when some videos get a little bit of lower numbers, I can still sit there and kind of picture like that's that many people who took the time to watch one of my videos and got some something from it," Frank told USA TODAY. "That was pretty cool."
Sheep and alpaca shearer
Katherine McRose, or Right Choice Shearing on TikTok, is a professional sheep and alpaca shearer. McRose has over 2.4 million followers, and some of her videos have 22 million views.
She stumbled into the profession by replying to a Craigslist ad when she was 14. McRose is born and raised in Texas and she attended Texas A&M University.
McRose and her wife Darion opened up a shearing business, and both travel all around the U.S. serving over 500 farms.
McRose started sharing her videos on TikTok in order to combat misinformation about the shearing industry. She aims to show how shearing can be a beautiful process when done correctly.
She said she enjoys the positive reaction that her videos bring to people and wants to continue to spread joy.
"I find that a lot of people really enjoy watching our videos because it's a kind of a peacefulness for them," McRose told USA TODAY. "There's something therapeutic about watching something that is appearing very dirty come out really clean and to the rhythm of the dance of the sheep shearing."
Pig husk trimmer or farrier
Emily Mohring has been a professional pig farrier, akapig husk trimmer, for over 10 years. Going by the screen name @emilythetrimmer on TikTok, she has over 487,000 followers, and her videos can get up to 77.2 million views.
Mohring teaches an apprentice program each year to teach others how to be a pig farrier.
Mohring travels all across the U.S., and even to Europe, to tend to domestic pigs. She grew up in rural Texas, near the Dallas area, and fell into the profession by accident when someone approached her and asked her to trim their pig's husk.
Mohring now has around 10,000 customers. Some of her customers have even asked her to sign an NDA before stepping into the property.
"I started posting videos, and I did adventures with Emily the trimmer because I live an adventurous life and do funny things and go odd places and end up in weird situations," Mohring told USA TODAY. "People started following along and liking that."
Galzi is from France, but she now resides in the U.S. She earned a master's degree in forensic facial imaging and now does facial reconstructions and age progression of missing children.
She decided to become a forensic artist after she saw it on a TV show. Gazi takes about six hours to make a sketch and does everything by hand. As part of her job, she had to study how to age a person, including how human skin ages.
She said she likes posting content online because it can help solve get to a lead in a case.
"When I work on missing children's cases, the best part is when they're found," Gazi told USA TODAY. "It's just wonderful to see how they age and how close we were."
