If Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag’s names have been popping up on your feed lately, it’s not because The Hills is getting a reboot (though, honestly, we would be here for it). Like many in the greater Los Angeles area, the couple has been grappling with the fallout from losing their home in the devastating Los Angeles wildfires.
This wildfire, which has burned through more than 23,713 acres and is at 43% containment, left the couple not only grappling with the loss of their family home. So, like many Americans, Pratt turned to his phone and started recording.
Over the past week, Pratt has been blowing up TikTok with a mix of goofy, heartfelt, and hustling vibes. His main mission? Promoting the 15th anniversary of his wife’s 2010 pop album, Superficial on TikTok, as a means to recoup their losses from the fire. Once considered a misstep for the couple’s bank account (they notoriously poured $2 million into its production and promotion), the album is now experiencing a massive surge in streams, climbing up the iTunes charts.
But Pratt isn’t holding his breath for a giant payday. “I have no idea how much money [the music has made],” he admitted to Variety. “I don’t think these streams and all these charts [make money]. Based on what people are telling me, the music business is about touring, it’s about merchandise… unless you’re doing billions of streams, which I’m still energetically [pushing]. It’s not happening yet!”
Really where Pratt is making money is on TikTok. “I made, like, $4,000 on TikTok this week, but on TikTok Live, where people can just give to me direct, I think maybe $20,000. So that’s phenomenal, and life-changing. That’s the power of individual supporters, people just backing you and getting behind you,” Pratt explained to Variety. “And that’s the most powerful when you don’t have to rely on ads or AI and algorithms when just actual human beings just want to give. It’s unbelievable and incredible.”
The couple — and nearly one million other Americans like them — are now making contingency plans for if TikTok shuts down. The Supreme Court upheld the TikTok ban on Jan. 16, and the popular app may go dark as soon as Sunday, Jan. 19.
For influencers like Pratt, this could feel apocalyptic. TikTok isn’t just a hub for ASMR slime videos or your favorite “brain rot” content — it’s a lifeline for financial survival for over one million Americans who have built businesses from their phones. They, along with Pratt and countless independent creators who built businesses on the platform, stand to lose a major income stream that serves over 170 million American users.
And it’s not just the creators themselves — all the adjacent jobs that come with the influencer economy on TikTok are also preparing for a blackout. “Advertisers are engaging in commercial speech to send out messages, influencers are doing commercial speech, and businesses are also sharing information. Therefore, there is a lot of spend going on,” Edward Klaris, managing partner at Klaris law, told CBS MoneyWatch.
The clock’s ticking, and creators like Pratt are facing a tough question: what happens if TikTok vanishes overnight? For millions of Americans, it’s more than an app — it’s a lifeline about to be severed.
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