There is a fantasy that crows and magpies love to gather small, shiny silver objects, just like the rings that adorn Eric Sedeño’s fingers. However as we walked into the Lili and Cata nail salon in Brooklyn(Opens in a brand new tab), the corvids will need to have been busy elsewhere.
Sedeño, too, is a collector of glistening issues, rings and motivational phrases alike. The 26-year-old TikTok movie star advised me, as he stripped a Hannah Jewett piece off his finger in anticipation of the manicure, that he needed to get extra piercings, holes to hold much more jewellery from his ears. He has his earlobe pierced and as soon as had a cartilage piercing — a notoriously powerful piercing to heal. He took it out as a result of, he mentioned, “I select pleasure.”
Selecting pleasure is a time period I normally reserve for irony. It’s a farmhouse signal at a craft retailer, hung alongside “collect” and “reside chuckle love”; it is what suburbanites say when they need a bit drink with lunch; it is what fills the Pinterest boards of center class American mothers. “Selecting pleasure” is sort of all the time a vaguely religious mantra for the self-help crowd. And whereas Sedeño makes use of it the identical method he makes use of slay — with irony, but additionally a major glimmer of sincerity — this phrase occurs to be the remarkably real and non-cringey method that Sedeño has carved out his area on-line. He is chosen pleasure at each second.
I selected crimson; Eric selected one silver dot.
Credit score: Molly Flores
Manicure
“Can I simply have one silver dot?”
Credit score: Molly Flores
Manicure
Basic crimson.
Credit score: Molly Flores
Sedeño grew up as a queer Mexican American in a suburb of Dallas, Texas that he mentioned simply “wasn’t very fascinating.” He performed soccer and soccer. He tells me he was a “full-bodied” center schooler.
“It was actually protected,” he mentioned, as a manicurist massages his arms. Sedeño thinks his finger nails are too huge so as a substitute of a full protection polish, he requested the artist to place a easy dot within the middle of every nail. “I used to be surrounded by folks of various cultures, which was very nice. All my mates have been so completely different from me my entire life, and so I feel that was fortunate in that sense. However I grew up in a bubble.”
Sedeño discovered methods to take imaginary excursions outdoors of this bubble. He cherished watching That is So Raven and says, like Raven’s character within the present, he envisioned going to highschool and enjoying costume up and carrying wigs. However wigs weren’t a commonplace accent in his Plano, Texas highschool, and neither, on the time, have been different queer youngsters. He mentioned he “all the time knew” he was homosexual.
“For lots of my life I used to be very quiet, making an attempt to cover items of myself,” he mentioned. In highschool, he acquired “crushes” on women and girls he admired. Throughout his freshman 12 months at school he got here out at bisexual and, just a few years later, as homosexual.
The primary particular person he advised that he kissed a boy was his greatest good friend — an individual he met in highschool who he nonetheless considers his greatest good friend; he describes her as “me as a lady.” She shouldn’t be very on-line and, Sedeño confesses, that is a pattern in his friendships: Most of them will not be on-line and even his real-life mates who’re on-line do not ask him to collaborate. None of his childhood mates have ever tried to reconnect in any form of gross, clout-chasing method, which could be a mirrored image of Sedeño himself — he by no means tries to mine his mates for content material and, in return, they respect him as an individual first and a content material creator second.
Sedeño’s dream to be his true self, come out of his shell, and put on wigs like Raven Simone did not occur in highschool. However he felt extra free to precise himself on-line. One among his best-performing movies, posted in October 2022 with 2.3 million views, is of him in a protracted black wig reimagining scenes from Twilight as Jacob. The video is captioned, “Jacob Black if he slayed.”
“Eric is somebody who is precisely who he’s on-line,” Tefi Pessoa, one other creator who is aware of Sedeño by TikTok, advised me, including that he’s somebody heat, who smiles at you and goes in for a hug as quickly as you stroll into the door. Pessoa is one in every of Sedeño’s all-time favourite creators on the app. “I’m not shocked so many individuals have gravitated in the direction of him as a result of he actually is the form of good friend you pray for as a child. And he kills it in a wig, bitch.”
Sedeño, an artwork director, graphic designer, and illustrator on high of his TikTok work, left Texas to reside away from residence for the primary time for an internship in promoting in 2018 in New York Metropolis. He downloaded TikTok in 2019 for an promoting marketing campaign and, at first, he mentioned he “did not get it.” As he stored scrolling, the app grew on him. On a whim, he began posting to his 20 or so buddies who adopted him there. It was March 2020, the start of keep at residence measures for the covid-19 pandemic, he had simply been dumped, he had simply chopped off all of his hair, and he had simply moved into a brand new house.
The oldest video on his web page shows a peak pandemic expertise. It’s March 17, 2020, and he is recording himself placing some poses in a Zoom class. “Making an attempt to behave shy and harmless so my crush notices me throughout my digital class,” he wrote within the caption.
“I simply had a lot alone time and I am a really social creature,” Sedeño mentioned of these early movies. “It was my method of being social on my own whereas I needed to be at residence working. It by no means felt awkward.” Ultimately, the views on his movies began stacking up. His first viral video confirmed him shaking his ass and garnered about 17,000 views. The second, a video of him asking his viewers if he seemed intimidating, reached greater than 500,000 views.
He begins to develop a repertoire: he follows a pattern, or he shakes his ass to no matter sound is widespread on the app that day, or he tells tales on to the digital camera. Sedeño’s pleasure comes by even in his earliest movies.
“I really feel like I began TikTok as a result of I cherished myself and I cherished what I used to be doing and I used to be like, ‘Let me present different folks,'” Sedeño mentioned.
As pandemic restrictions lifted, different folks began often popping into his movies, however that was nonetheless fairly uncommon. A few of his movies use the #foryoupage tag – typically deployed by creators to assist their movies go viral – and others do not. Sedeño is wise. He is aware of that his movies have the potential to get views, and likewise preserves a sense that his content material is a glimpse into one thing candid, as if his pleasure is so radiant that it merely should be captured and shared. Nothing reads as rehearsed or practiced. He appears to be having a foolish, goofy, barely unhinged time.
From the beginning, Sedeño appeared to naturally know a central truth about being on-line that others take years to be taught. “Step one to doing something properly is to take pleasure in your self and be your self doing that factor,” Sedeño mentioned. “I began TikTok as a result of I cherished myself and I cherished what I used to be doing and I needed to indicate different folks.”
Slay!!
Credit score: Molly Flores
Now, Sedeño, aka @RicoTaquito(Opens in a brand new tab), has over 1 million social media followers and over 81 million likes. He is partnered with Denny’s, Spotify, Google, eBay, Adidas, Warby Parker, Hulu, Supergoop, Calvin Klein, Garnier Fructis, to call just a few He has been featured in Vogue(Opens in a brand new tab), Teen Vogue(Opens in a brand new tab), and PAPER(Opens in a brand new tab). Sedeño makes comedic movies, DIY tutorials, and he not too long ago launched Groove Offers(Opens in a brand new tab), a candle firm partnered with whose proceeds go to donating meals to households and youngsters in want — to date, they’ve donated greater than 15,000 meals.
Sedeño’s area on-line is a predominately type one, however with any virality comes the unlucky actuality of trolls — and the necessity to set boundaries with parasocial relationships.
“The web could be onerous. It may be a merciless place,” Sedeño mentioned. “I’ve had moments the place I am like, ‘Oh my God, persons are so imply.'”
He mentioned he appears like some folks do not need to hear about his issues, and he would not essentially need to share all of them, both. Being a creator like Sedeño entails discovering a stability between sharing components of your life that your viewers desires to know and that makes them really feel linked to you, all whereas sustaining boundaries and privateness. Getting the stability mistaken in both path may end up in alarming penalties.
“I am OK with not sharing every part with the entire world,” Sedeño mentioned. “I skew in the direction of, like, if I am not having one of the best day, I am not gonna pretend it. If I am not in a humorous temper, I am not gonna pressure myself to sit down down and make content material.”
Sedeño, like all of us, typically feels the urge to publish his method by an upsetting or tough second. He has, up to now, taken these movies down just a few hours later.
However, normally, he’s in a humorous temper. He says he tries to begin every single day with a smile, and other people on-line are principally type to him. “For me, who you see on-line is who you get in particular person. And so it’s totally authentically simply me being myself,” one thing the web appears to answer. That additionally means, although, that trolls can lower deep. “When folks do not like me, it used to harm me so much as a result of it truly is me,” he mentioned.
Delicate however slay.
Credit score: Molly Flores
He has no plans to cease making movies any time quickly, however he additionally desires to spend extra time specializing in different inventive pursuits. He is a superb artist and designer, and not too long ago made a zine that he hopes to begin promoting. He desires to make an interactive web site and — for what it is price — it is wanting fairly good proper now(Opens in a brand new tab). He desires to begin a podcast this 12 months. These are all issues he has needed to do for some time, he tells me, however his phrase for 2023 is “consistency.” He’ll get it completed, he guarantees.
Like several creator, Sedeño is on the lookout for methods to monetize his following by tapping into the enjoyment his followers flip to him to see and really feel. The cynical a part of me desires to see this because the TikTok model of a “select pleasure” farmhouse signal. However sitting throughout from him, it’s tough to really feel cynical. I am reminded of the early days of the pandemic, when he first joined TikTok. Day by day we have been surrounded by uncertainty and concern. Discovering any pleasure at the moment was an act of resilience and resistance. When Sedeño first began making his movies, he selected pleasure on TikTok. He by no means stopped.
I am taken by his perseverance and consistency, by his devotion to pleasure. His steadfast dedication to pleasure on social media — a spot fairly actually designed to make customers sad(Opens in a brand new tab) — jogs my memory of meteorologists on the information throughout a hurricane, standing in the midst of the storm and giving the report regardless of the circumstances that demand they cease. He is not impervious to the results of his environment, however he is not budging.
Paulie Gees is a slay!!
Credit score: Molly Flores
After we acquired our nails completed, we walked over to get a slice of pizza at Paulie Gee’s in Greenpoint. As we sat down, he advised me about his first job as an assistant supervisor at a pizza place when he was 17 years outdated. He talked about working at TopGolf, Greatest Purchase, and a Christian furnishings firm. He known as himself a “persona rent” at every of those jobs, and his persona appears to nonetheless be carrying him by his gig on TikTok, too.
However in contrast to TopGolf or a pizza place, he has a whole lot of hundreds of eyes on him now. He mentioned he’s “actually making an attempt to get again to that delusion of loving myself no matter something mistaken with me.” Sedeño desires to “have enjoyable and be silly.” In my superb world, that’s all of the web could be.