Local TikTok star going on tour
Mar. 30—Leotards, dancing in public and comedy stand-up acts have led one St. Joseph resident to a large following on TikTok.
"I wore a leotard in public and that kind of took over," said Elisabeth Wykert, a local comedian. "I posted anything and everything and whatever trends were going on. I'm a comedian, so I was just doing my normal commentary on everyday life and random jokes. It was literally a smorgasbord of everything."
The Union Star, Missouri, native and now St. Joseph resident started her TikTok journey in 2019 and has since gained more than 580,000 followers. However, Wykert was building her career in comedy much earlier.
"I did my first stand-up show almost nine years ago," Wykert said. "I just kind of picked it up here and there and then right before the pandemic in January of 2020, I introduced music in my act and I was like 'This is it.'"
The response was enough to inspire Wykert to go on her own comedy tour but due to the pandemic she was forced to wait to hit the road until recently.
"I have New Hampshire next month then followed by Seattle, Albuquerque and then San Diego," Wykert said. "I also booked London and I'm very excited. We have so much room to fill, so I'm desperately looking for more cities as people keep commenting."
Wykert said she would describe her comedy tour as a "2000 slumber party on stage."
"It's a night with your girls or with your guys and you're laughing, talking and having a good time," Wykert said. "Throw that in with a couple musical numbers, dances and serenading people with a song on the spot."
Since announcing her tour, Wykert said it's been a slow build but many followers and fans have come through to support her.
"You just got to keep putting it out there and tell people to share," Wykert said. "The response has been really awesome. I love it when people say 'My friend dragged me to this or my wife dragged me to this, but I loved it and I hadn't laughed that much in so long,'" she said. "Those are nice because they went in absolutely zero expectation of knowing what was going on."
While a lot has changed since Wykert began her TikTok career, she said her plan remains the same.
"My goal was that I can reach the masses so that I can put on a show, perform and that people will come to see me," Wykert said. "That was my goal and it is still my goal it's just clearly changed with how I get to do it. At the end of the day, I hope people are just having a lot of fun and I want to have fun."
Wykert said her experience with the TikTok community has been positive despite the negative connotations associated with social media platforms.
"The audience and the community inside TikTok is by far the best one out of all of them," Wykert said. "I have done all the main platforms since the beginning and TikTok is just so overwhelmingly positive. It's insane. There's always people who are negative, especially when a video goes viral but, when I tell you I have like a thousand comments and maybe only 10 to 20 would be negative."
With all Wykert has accomplished so far through comedy and TikTok, she doesn't plan to stop anytime soon.
"I'll never stop posting on the internet because it truly does make people happy," Wykert said. "I see the comments and I appreciate them. I honestly would love to have a sitcom one day, but within all that, I'm still me."
Sara Rooney can be reached at sara.rooney@newspressnow.com.
