What’s Poppin’ with Mikayla Nogueira?
“What’s poppin’?” You might have heard this phrase before, but social media star, Mikayla Nogueira, made it all the more popular in recent years. A social media influencer can be defined as “someone who has the power to affect the purchasing decisions of others because of his or her authority, knowledge, position, or relationship with his or her audience,” and Mikayla definitely fits that bill (Geyser, 2022). She was born and raised in southeastern Massachusetts and then went on to attend and graduate from Bryant University in Rhode Island. Mikayla currently resides in her new Massachusetts home with her fiancé and is now one of, if not the most popular beauty influencer at this moment in time — with almost 2 million Instagram followers and 11.2 million followers on TikTok (where she began her social media career).
Mikayla mentions frequently in her videos that makeup has almost always been a part of her life. She told Allure this: “I was only 10 years old, but my mom handed me an Avon catalog and I circled a bunch of stuff. I thought, Why not try it out? And the rest is absolutely history,” (Mazzone, 2021). Mikayla truly found her niche in the beauty community starting way back in 2013 on Tumblr. Her love for makeup wasn’t just a typical hobby, it turned into a true passion of hers. Telling Allure that, “When I was 15, I entered a competition called DECA and made a 50-page business plan for freelance online beauty consultations and services. I entered the Boston competition and I won. And then I got to go down to Florida and present it to more people,” (Mazzone, 2021). Years later, Mikayla would get a job at Ulta where she worked as a Prestige Beauty Advisor, “Which meant she was trained in every product and had the opportunity to work on people every day,” and this helped her prepare for her future as a makeup influencer (Brown, 2021). Mikayla didn’t know it then, but in a few short years almost all of her dreams would come true.
It was in 2020 when she took the beauty community by storm on the newer social media app at the time, TikTok. TikTok is “a social media platform for creating, sharing and discovering short videos. The app is used by young people as an outlet to express themselves through singing, dancing, comedy, and lip-syncing, and allows users to create videos and share them across a community,” (What Is TikTok). One of the largest communities on this app is the beauty community. I know this first hand because I too have been creating beauty content on TikTok since late 2020. Like many other influencers, when Mikayla first joined the app, she had no intention of becoming viral. However, her very first upload to the platform, with zero followers and following zero accounts, blew up almost instantly.
Her first video to blow up (and her first video in general) was a “Catfish Challenge” video where she showed her face with no makeup and then transitioned into a shot of her face with a makeup look. This video is what kickstarted Mikayla’s career as a beauty influencer but it wasn’t until a few posts later when she truly felt social validation for the first time. Growing up, Mikayla experienced bullying from her peers. They would most often pick on her for her voice, among other things. After her first TikTok post went viral, Mikayla eventually went on to create a makeup tutorial rather than the before and after videos she was making. Her first tutorial would be the first video that shed light on Mikayla’s voice. Her strong Boston accent definitely makes her stick out, but rather than for negative reasons, the people who saw this video instantly fell in love with her voice. “The first thing you notice when listening to Mikayla is her deep Boston accent. Initially, it made her feel insecure, but she grew confident about it when she realized that most fans loved it,” (Rice, 2021).
A big part of TikTok, and for that matter, Mikayla’s career, would be remixing content. TikTok is all about ‘duetting’ or ‘stitching’ a video to make it your own. A frequent technique that Mikayla does is taking someone else’s video of them reviewing or using a makeup product and then replying or adding to it in her own post. In fact, creators (both big and small) will make videos specifically for Mikayla to see–pleading for her review of whatever product they are showcasing. As her account grew, her credibility grew and brands from every corner of the beauty world started sending her free products in hopes of her reviewing them on her account. Even a-list celebrity and owner of Rare Beauty, Selena Gomez, was on the Mikayla train quite early in the game. She sent a video of herself to Mikayla saying, “What’s poppin’?”–Mikayla’s well-known catchphrase. Mikayla was floored that Selena knew who she was and now she is a common household name in the beauty community.
After going viral and establishing some credibility in just a short period of time, Mikayla would go on to do some amazing things. It has been a privilege and an honor to be able to say that I have been following her since she was filming in her childhood bedroom just two years ago. In early 2021, she went on to get an apartment of her own and built an entire beauty studio there. Soon after she moved in, she launched her first collaboration with a beauty brand, ColourPop. “Mikayla’s Poppin’ Picks” was a bundle of her favorite ColourPop products that people could buy in one package that launched in February, 2021 (ColourPop, 2021). In that same year, she met the love of her life and decided to get another new apartment with him (they would eventually get engaged in November, 2021). In June of 2021, Mikayla launched her very first product in collaboration with a brand. Instead of picking her favorite products for a bundle, she worked with Glamlite Cosmetics and formulated an entirely new eyeshadow palette along with some other products. This launch sold out in seconds and showed her the true size of the empire she was quickly and steadily creating (Mikayla X Glamlite).
References
Brown, L. (2021, April 11). How a Massachusetts makeup artist built a TikTok empire. The Boston Globe. Retrieved March 26, 2022, from https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/04/11/lifestyle/how-massachusetts-makeup-artist-built-tiktok-empire/
ColourPop: new month, more crushes 💜. (2021, February 19). Milled. Retrieved March 27, 2022, from https://milled.com/colourpop/new-month-more-crushes-m_emmfp90NZUobYc
Duets. (n.d.). TikTok Help Center. Retrieved March 27, 2022, from https://support.tiktok.com/en/using-tiktok/creating-videos/duets
Geyser, W. (2022, January 27). What is an Influencer? — Social Media Influencers Defined [Updated 2021]. Influencer Marketing Hub. Retrieved March 26, 2022, from https://influencermarketinghub.com/what-is-an-influencer/
Mazzone, D. (2021, March 29). Mikayla Nogueira Is TikTok’s Favorite Makeup Artist. Allure. Retrieved March 26, 2022, from https://www.allure.com/story/mikayla-nogueira-makeup-artist-tiktok-interview
Mikayla x Glamlite Full Collection with PR BOX. (n.d.). Glamlite. Retrieved March 27, 2022, from https://glamlite.com/products/mikayla-full-collection-w-pr-box
Rice, L. (2021, March 22). The truth about Mikayla Nogueira. TheNetline. Retrieved March 27, 2022, from https://thenetline.com/the-truth-about-mikayla-nogueira/
Stitch. (n.d.). TikTok Help Center. Retrieved March 27, 2022, from https://support.tiktok.com/en/using-tiktok/creating-videos/stitch
What is Tik Tok (formally musical.ly)? (2021). Webwise. Retrieved March 26, 2022, from https://www.webwise.ie/parents/explained-tiktok/
