The 10 Most Popular Italian TikTokers

During the months of the lockdown, TikTok reached the peak of 2 billion downloads. Only in Italy, users have reached the peak of 3.6 million for a growth of +388% compared to 2019. The record has transformed ByteDance, its parent company, into the most valuable start-up on the market, holding over 110 billions of dollars. Despite its strongest presence involves young people between the age of 16-24, in the past few months TikTok has expanded its audience by conquering other population groups (especially 25-34). The growth in its popularity has led several fashion and beauty brands to become increasingly interested in the possibilities offered by the app. In a time of general crisis of influencer marketing, in which budgets for influencer marketing on other platforms such as Instagram have been the first to be cut, TikTok seems to be the new target for many brands, given the authenticity of its contents and an extremely young audience. The first to understand it were Burberry and Celine, but in recent times also several Italian brands such as Furla have opened their accounts and started to involve in their campaigns many TikTokers, the influencers of TikTok: a new generation of stars who have millions of followers, but are almost unknown outside of the app.

Born from the ashes of Musical.ly, it takes just a few seconds on the app to see a series of ballets, lip-sync and sketches, almost always with a positive and light cut. Despite they all seem random, these contents are organized by an artificial intelligence: a principle underlying almost all social networks, but that has a fundamental difference  on TikTok, since its feed does not fish only from the following of each user, but from all the TikToks published in the world. All the contents are mixed in a single, huge cauldron controlled by the algorithm. For being successful on the app it is not enough to just be a celebrity outside the app. Today, the Chinese-owned app is however trying to diversify the range of content with a more varied offer that also includes educational and information videos. Still, TikTok comes with a dark side, too: ByteDance has been accused of having a nebulous policy on the privacy of its users' biometric data, as well as being used by China as a tool for propaganda and normalization of the Chinese web.

To date, TikTok is the only app where celebrity is truly user-generated. Its most famous TikTokers, who before were called Muser, are very young and almost all born on the app (at most they come from Musical.ly) and their engagement is calculated not only based on the number of followers, but also on the number of likes they received in total. Although they are real stars within the TikTok microcosm, almost none of them manage to make the leap to other platforms.

To get an idea of the extent of the phenomenon, nss magazine has compiled a list of the 10 most popular TikTokers in Italy.

Paky (@paky__official)
4.2 million followers

Just a few years ago, a video showing what happens when Mentos are mixed with Coca Cola had gone viral on Facebook and YouTube. Pasquale Della Sala (aka Paky), with more than 4 million followers and almost 150 million likes, has inherited the legacy of that kind of non-sense contents: on his profile there is an almost total lack of dances and lip-syncs; on the contrary, all his videos are ironic sketches in which he makes jokes to friends, parents and strange experiments with food. It is interesting that, for each video published, it publishes another one in which it reveals its backstage.

Faffapix (@faffapix)
4.2 million followers

On the same spot, Faffapix (born Fabio Farati) also became famous without dances and lip-sync, but sharing the backstage of his videos. Unlike Paky, however, his irony is based much less on elaborate jokes, but rather on his awkwardness and a comedy that vaguely recalls the one of the Looney Toones. Born in 1996, he is one of the few Millennials in the ranking. It is the most recent phenomenon of TikTok: in March alone he gained over 1 million followers.

Gianluca Vacchi (@gianlucavacchi)
4.7 million followers

Gianluca Vacchi is the only name that landed on TikTok after gaining fame on other platforms that manages to earn a position in the ranking. His success was predictable, considering that a few years ago he had become viral on Instagram precisely for his moves. Except for some glimpses of everyday life, between appointments at the barber and visits to the Lamborghini factories, the main content of his videos is the most traditional one of dancing, mostly with his girlfriend Sharon Fonseca. Despite having over 4.7 million followers, Vacchi has a relatively low engagement: the total of his likes is around 18 million, against the hundreds of millions reached by the other TikToker.

Virginia Montemaggi (@virginiamontemaggi)
4.7 million followers

If you were to draw the profile of the star-type of TikTok, Virginia Montemaggi would be the perfect example. She became famous after making her bones on Musical.ly, and her videos are all trendy dances and lip-syncs, almost always shot at home and without the search for breathtaking landscapes. At just 20 years old she boasts almost 5 million followers and a very high engagement of almost 300 million likes.

Elisa Maino (@majno)
5.2 million followers

Born in 2003, Elisa Maino was the first Italian to overcome 1 million followers on Musical.ly. She also represents well the image of the typical TikTok star: her specialty are lip-syncs, often taken from viral scenes on Italian television (all those contents that depopulate on Trash Italiano). Engaged to Diego Lazzari, who is another famous TikToker, in 2019 she was the protagonist of a documentary film about her life: Ops. On the occasion of the opening of Furla's official TikTok account, she was chosen to sponsor the new collection.

Jessica Brugali (@jessibrugali)
5.5 million followers

Jessica Brugali is one of the most adult TikToker. She too, like Gianluca Vacchi, first made herself known to the general public through more traditional channels: after starting her career in the field of advertising, in recent years she has landed as a valet in the Italian tv show Avanti un altro! and has been a guest on other shows such as Ciao Darwin and Le iene. Like Paky and Faffapix, she went viral thanks to some ironic videos shot in the company of her dog Sean and her father; however, unlike the other TikTokers who produce parody content, there are no backstages videos on her profile. At 27 she has 5.5 million followers and more than 147 million likes.

Marco Cellucci (@marcocellucci)
5.5 million followers

Born in 2002, at only 18 years of age Marco Cellucci is one of the TikTokers with the highest engagement of all: he has over 5.5 million followers and more than 500 million likes, compared to the 18 profiles he follows in return. His contents are very traditional and faithful to the most popular challenges. Unlike the other TikTokers, who often come together to create original content, in his videos he is almost always alone, at best in the company of his cat. After achieving success on the app, today he is represented by the talent agency of Francesco Facchinetti.

LapresaTwins (@lapresatwins)
5.6 million followers

In third place there is a couple of twins: Nicholas and William, born in Bologna in 1999. They are the app's latest phenomenon: since the beginning of the year, their popularity has grown by 250%, from 2 million to 5.6 million of followers. Protagonists of parodic sketches, they are among the most creative from the point of view of fashion: often in their videos they play with make-up, experiment with hair dyes, create tie-dye t-shirts and sometimes they also dress with women's clothes. They are among the few TikTokers to have an open Instagram profile and in January they were front row guests of the Dolce & Gabbana fashion show.

Kessy e Mely (@kessyemely)
5.8 million followers

The second place belongs to another pair of twins: Cassandra and Melissa Tejada, with Peruvian origins. Unlike the Lapresa twins, Kessy and Mely hardly ever engage in fun contents, but they almost exclusively prefer dances. The strategy is clear: much more than the Lapresa, which often also appear individually in the videos, their brand is that of the twins. Halfway between Terry and Maggie and the Kessler twins, they always dress the same, always make the same moves and even when they involve other TikTokers they prefer to call another pair of twins.

Luciano Spinelli (@lucianospinelli)
7.5 million followers

Born in 2000, at just 20 years old Luciano Spinelli is not only the most followed TikToker in Italy, but also one of the most followed in the world. Given his success and over 7.5 million followers, as well as more than 500 million likes, together with Elisa Maino in recent months he has become the face of TikTok in Italy, especially after participating at the Italian show Viva RaiPlay, the first original show from the new Rai streaming platform hosted by Fiorello. His fans gave themselves the name of "Volpini" and he might be the TikToker who is gathering more followers outside the app, with a total of 1.8 million followers also on Instagram.

The ranking is drawn up based on the number of followers and not on the number of likes received.