Maya Nepos’ TikTok origin story began the same way as mine and probably yours too. After being sent home from school in March—in her case, a study abroad program—something had to fill the quarantine void. “I was just sad and in my room, and bored, and I was like ‘I guess I’ll download this, I don’t have anything else better to do with my time now that I have so much time.’”

Our origin stories deviate from one another, though, in that she is TikTok famous and I, well, have zero public videos on my account.

The Washington University senior has gained a large social media following for her informative yet entertaining TikTok videos pertaining to everything politics. From anti-Trump raps to reminders about voter registration, she brings viewers all the news coverage and commentary one could need in the confines of a minute.

Washington University senior Maya Nepos sits in Bowles Plaza. Nepos returned to campus this fall as a TikTok star, accumulating over 200,000 followers.

Initially, Nepos’ account was set to private for her and her friends. But as time went on and the 2020 political scene grew more insane, she decided to go public about her opinions. “Trump did the whole ‘yeah maybe you should put bleach in your system,’…I can’t not say anything about this,” Nepos remembers.

By the time June rolled around, Nepos was filming about the Tulsa rally, the Black Lives Matter movement and even Kanye’s step into the election ring. She combined her passion for politics with her talent for freestyle rap to form relevant content. People seemed to really like it, so she kept doing it. And 203,000 followers later, Nepos’ success has seen no limit.

Just ask her about Alicia Keys, who recently reposted a TikTok of Nepos receiving her absentee ballot to the sound of Keys’ 2020 song, “Love Looks Better.” When she saw the singer’s Instagram story on Oct. 1, Nepos shrieked and proceeded to skip “all of school for the rest of the week.”

While Nepos is technically still a full-time Wash. U. student, she said her senior year has been drastically altered by her TikTok career. The original plan of having a chill, 12-credit spring semester was scrapped in exchange for having a lighter course load this fall semester—the semester of the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election.

Nepos likens the upcoming election in November to the Olympic Games. “Every four years the world is watching,” she says. And with less than four weeks left until Election Day, it is officially crunch time. “I have like 10 emails every two minutes in my inbox of people like, ‘Oh hey, we’re trying to get the vote out,’” Nepos says, “and I’m like, ‘Okay me too, let’s go!’”

Her apartment mates know how busy she is, but from an outsider perspective, it can be pretty hard to tell. “It’s pretty chaotic and it’s pretty nonvisible chaos,” Nepos explains. In our current COVID-19 world, even working with the BBC News on a documentary must happen from the safety of one’s room.

Despite the recurring theme of her videos, Nepos’ academic and career aspirations go far beyond the realm of civic activism. As a Psychology major and Marketing minor, she sees herself getting involved with marketing and social media in the future, but not politics per se.

Nepos does feel, however, that psychology makes its way into her TikTok experience through the connectivity of the platform. “Being able to relate to people is what gives me life,” says Nepos. And her videos have clearly resonated with all types of demographics, from fellow Wash. U. students to moms living in Alaska. “I never would’ve met these moms from Alaska if it weren’t for TikTok,” she adds. “It kind of just makes your world bigger, which is awesome, so I kind of just kept doing it.”

That’s not to say that politics has not been an integral part of Nepos’ upbringing though, because it has.

“I was into it before [recent years], just because my mom teaches political science and sociology and stuff. And so we would talk about it… that’s just like normal dinner conversation. When I was 11, [my mom] took me to my first protest. I have a picture of it somewhere on my massive wall,” Nepos says, motioning to the extensive photo collage in the background of her Zoom video.

They were bundled up on the streets of Madison, Wis., marching with the crowds of protesters demanding the recall of Governor Scott Walker. More than maybe even the specific cause itself, the mixed excitement of being in the capital and getting to skip school made that first protest a pivotal experience for Nepos and her interest in activism.

When asked which of her TikTok videos was her favorite, Nepos first mentioned one of her more viral ones: a Trump freestyle from July, when he first threatened to ban TikTok. After addressing him as “cinnamon bun,” Nepos goes on to call out the president on his attempts to limit freedom of speech when the words are not in his favor. That freestyle video has now been viewed over 2.3 million times on the social media app, with over 10,000 comments. “That was the one I started getting press about, even though I didn’t find out for like a month,” she said.

Nepos also encouraged and informed viewers on her TikTok to participate in poll working. The feedback on the video was overwhelmingly positive, with people reaching out to thank Nepos and let her know that they registered to be poll workers this November.

“We were like hundreds of thousands of poll workers short and so that one was the one I felt like I made the biggest impact on, I guess.” Nepos went on to say that she loves all her videos though, because if she didn’t, they would not have been posted in the first place.

When considering her account’s trajectory for post-election times, Nepos expressed a bit of uncertainty. “I really don’t know what I’m going to do after a month from now. I think I might just go on vacation or retire or something,” she laughed, “because hopefully I don’t have to be on TikTok for four more years. Like hopefully, things go well.”