Ophelia Nichols: The Friend from Alabama You Never Knew You Needed

Published in

Digital & Media Literacy

5 min readMar 22, 2022

In an online galaxy of mean girls, heartbreaking inequality, and political divide, Ophelia’s videos seek to do the opposite and connect people. She is not your average, photoshopped twenty year old selling beauty products and diet drinks. A forty year old mother of four, she is a sweet, petite blonde with an accent like Dolly Parton. She’s often compared to her online, as well. She is an every woman who works in a furniture store in Mobile, Alabama. She calls herself Mama Tot, and greets her followers with “Good Morning my Little Tater Tots”. She explained the Tater Tot moniker was an expression of care, and she takes pride in being the big sister or mother to people who may not have one, or more accurately, have been shunned by their birth mothers. She is an advocate for the LGBTQ+ community, and offers her genuine Mama Tot advice for younger people who don’t have the best role models. She shares without unloading, listens without judgment. A lot of her videos make you feel like you’re spending time with a friend you didn’t know you needed. A survivor of an abusive mother and a 16 year old who was kicked out with her baby with no where to go at three months old , Ophelia “stitches” TikToks (and often she is tagged) in videos where young people are making videos about problematic relationships with their parents and emphasizes without making it about her, which is a skill.

Ophelia began her career in 2012 when she started posting pictures on Instagram. She began her TikTok career when quarantine hit and her daughter started to send her funny videos she found on the app. Ophelia states, “Once I created my page, I began to see other people and their pages- some sad, some happy. I saw new babies being born, meltdowns due to COVID, comedy, you name it. It was an array of just about every emotion possible around the world.” Once a haven for the under 20 Gen Z crowd, more mature creators have been gaining some popularity among age groups. Ophelia appeals to the kids with problematic relationships with their own parents, as well as people in her age group that due to family and work constraints may feel isolated and appreciate the virtual friendship Ophelia decides. Either way, in a world that has gotten all too familiar with social distancing, Ophelia provides a bit of comfort.

After seeing there was a desperate need for positive output in the digital world, Ophelia began to make her videos. But the one that gained her a cult following was not actually hers, but rather a reaction or “stitch”. A young girl posted her mother didn’t like her dress and body shamed her, and Ophelia gave a sincere, heartfelt rebuttal “not to listen to that heifer, you’re beautiful”. That video garnished over 7 million likes. Her followers now turn to her when they need advice or a kind word, and there is one video where she eats with her follower because they need someone to share a meal with. Her advice ranges from things to tell struggling young people to one video that made me get a little teary about how as a mother, she lost her identity trying to be a good mom. She also has relatable videos about every day things you would discuss with an old friend. I heard about her old dog, and she was nervous about going to her tattoo appointment. The simplicity in Ophelia’s videos is they feel like they are directed at you. She’s harnessed a skill to create a feeling of commonality in everything she discusses. At times, she does admonish parents who judge their children for being homosexual, and offers to be the stand in mother. She is even part of a Facebook group that virtually does just that.

There are product placements though, but I’m not sure they’re actually paid. I have seen Ophelia tell a fan which eyelashes she uses when she asked, and she has plugged TV shows. It feels so natural and genuine it’s tough to discern whether Ophelia is actually getting paid for this placement or she actually does use Maybelline. Either way, you really don’t care. It kind of makes me think, if this beautiful human is making a little side scratch for her videos that are so inspirational to so many, good!

I did see that her fame has catapulted her to awards, and most notably a guest spot on Jay Leno. What began as an account exclaiming her love for shoes “Shoelover999” has blossomed into a full time career on Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram with over 3 million followers to date.

Could these types of influencers replace the ones that have historically made women feel like crap about themselves? According to an article on Stylist, the answer is no. They claim a staggering 33% of women consciously follow influencers who make them feel worse about themselves, and the reality that we exist in a “comparison culture” is that the positives these influencers post only make us scrutinize the lack of abundance in our own lives. Although there are some influencers that are challenging Instagram’s “perfection myth” by opening discourse about how not all on social media is unfiltered. With the amount of filters available, we tend to forget that these posts are carefully curated and sometimes rooted more in fiction or a skewed reality than fact.

Perhaps in an environment like social media where engagement thrives off our own insecurities, Ophelia Nichols is on to something. Maybe the ability to provide positive energy is possible, in contrast to the posts that feel like they magnify our shortcomings. Perhaps not all social media needs to be critical or market based. As anomic as it feels sometimes in the digital community, there are plenty of users looking for validation, connection, and comfort. And, lucky for us all, Ophelia Nichols is happy to provide that to her “Tater Tots”.

Links to some of Ophelia’s videos:

https://fb.watch/bVLk7sZCSU/ Tells women that their houses “ain’t never going to look like those heifers on social media”

Woman wins over TikTok with message to girl who was body-shamed by mom: ‘I had one of those mamas, too’ (aol.com) Article with TikTok video included that catapulted Ophelia to online stardom (also an article I referenced)

Ophelia Nichols: The Friend from Alabama You Never Knew You Needed

Written by Erica Deis