DEEP DIVE

TikTok made a name for itself as a short-form video app turning teenagers into social media celebrities overnight. Mattia Polibio, Alejandro Rosario, and Kairi Cosentino, known collectively as the Jersey Trio, are all too familiar. The high schoolers have between 1  million and 5 million followers on TikTok, each, and their Instagram accounts are just as popular.

The guys stumbled into TikTok fame, having started by posting comedy bits for fun. They saw viral success after a video of the boys with a lollipop blew up on the app within a 24-hour time span.

“Our lives have changed completely, to be honest,” Rosario tells Sade Spence of StayHipp.

“Doing normal things, like getting food … now we get noticed at fast food restaurants,” adds Cosentino. “It’s not a bad thing, but it’s kinda crazy. We’ll just be going somewhere like normal and being recognized and having to like take pictures and stuff.”

But a few glances at a Chick-Fil-A don’t even come to encapsulate the true impact of their presence on their fellow peers. The teen boys quite literally closed down a New Jersey mall after organizing what they thought would be a decent size meet-and-greet.

“When we got there the mall was shut down. There were way too many people there,” explains Cosentino. “To me, that was a big accomplishment an really opened our eyes up to how many people are actually there for us and devoted.” That’s why the guys have planned to release official Jersey Trio merch hopefully for Summer 2020.

But their newfound fame isn’t all fun and games, the guys are already facing their share of faux friendships.

“People from my old school try to text me now and they never reached [out] to me ever,” Rosario says. “Now, they see me, they’re like ‘Oh, remember when we used to do this, do that?’ And they just try to bring back things and be friends with me, but I know if I was never on there, they wouldn’t ever reach out to me.”

Between high school, quarantine, and TikTok fame, the youngsters have a full plate and with stay-at-home orders in effect due to COVID-19, many people (including celebrities) have joined the app, leading to more competition. But the Jersey Trio admit they don’t let the pressures of competition or the need to constantly create, get to them.

“Every single video I put out, if it does worse, I feel like I did something wrong. But that’s the pressure with me. Every video has to be better than the other… but other than that, I’m not really pressured by anything,” shares Polibio. Cosentino and Rosario echoed similar sentiments, revealing they are all quite confident in their TikTok game, and in the end, it’s all about having fun.

“We like to have fun. We push each other. It’s not competitive at all. It’s in a fun way,” finished Cosentino.