You’ve seen her on TikTok. Charlotte’s Michelle Kimball is the Internet’s bartender now
In June of 2020, Michelle Kimball, 33, told her husband: “One day, TikTok will pay for our bills.” At the time, she had less than 100 followers.
Justin Kimball hated TikTok. It was all Michelle talked about after she first downloaded it, and she constantly tried to get him to participate in videos with her. He just didn’t want anything to do with it.
“Well, the day that that happens is the day that I will apologize,” he said.
That was after Michelle downloaded the app. Her best friend sent a link to a TikTok video, and Michelle couldn’t watch it unless she downloaded the app first. Before that, Michelle just thought the app was just for teenagers and other members of Gen Z to dance on the Internet.
“And then I just kept scrolling, and I got stuck,” she said. “It wasn’t just dancing.”
Michelle has been a bartender in Charlotte for more than 10 years. For her, bartending is an act of entertainment. She describes it as being in a fishbowl, making the rounds between regulars, friends and brand new customers, trying to get everyone to talk and have a good time. Her goal is to always serve with a smile, maybe get a laugh — and always end the night with plenty of good stories.
So when Michelle started making her own TikTok videos, those stories came in handy. In May, soon after making her bet with Justin, she made a video poking fun at customers who ask for drinks to be made with less ice. Translation: With extra alcohol.
The video showed what she does in response to this request, revealing a classic, insider bartender trick for all the world to see: Pour the alcohol in through the straw.
That one video went viral overnight, receiving over half a million views.
“I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m going to get recognized in public now — that’s insane,’” she said.
Only, not quite, she soon realized. For many content creators, one viral video does not equate to a sudden rise in followers due to the nature of the app. The signature endless scroll of the For You Page means that users see aggregated content from across the app that is dependent on what they like, comment and share, rather than who they follow.
Growth in followers comes from consistent posting and finding a niche on the app that entertains users enough to get them to follow.
From that one viral video, Kimball realized that online fame was something she wanted to chase after. And her bartending content, in which she acts out customer-server interactions, was just what was popular.
Over a year and a half, Kimball grew her following to 2 million. As her following grew, so did her marketability. Through paid sponsored posts with companies including Iluna, a hangover-prevention supplement, and BOMANI, an alcohol-infused cold brew, Kimball admits she could likely quit her job. But now she finds herself at an interesting juncture: TikTok can pay the bills, but her day job provides the content.
“I didn’t realize our stories were that interesting to people until I started telling them,” she said.
Almost famous
Kimball never wanted to be famous for mixing drinks. She didn’t want other bartenders on the app to see her service and offer critiques, and frankly she didn’t think what she did was relevant. Instead, she thought internet fame came from doing what everyone else was doing.
Her first video was of her husband, part of a trend challenging men to try and put their feet up against a wall, put their heads down and then try to stand up. Her husband couldn’t do it. Then she thought she needed to learn the trending dance to Megan Thee Stallion’s “Savage.”
“I learned it and recorded myself, and I looked like a fool because I cannot dance,” she said. “It took me a couple of hours watching it over and over and over and over again.”
Most of her other videos were aimed at getting creators to use one of her recorded sounds. She would film herself saying the bits from her favorite comedians so that other creators could use it as the backdrop for their videos.
“I kept trying to say things that other people would want to say, and it wasn’t really natural,” she said.
But in the end, it wasn’t the dancing or lip syncing that brought Kimball to her current fame. No, it was just her, doing what she does everyday: interacting with customers, trying out new drink combinations and entertaining.
“I didn’t want TikTok to put me in this bubble where it only wants my bartending and serving stuff to go viral,” she said.
But that’s the nature of fame, specifically TikTok fame — you never quite know what will go viral.
Michelle kept chasing after the thrill of that first viral video, and it took time to figure it out. She would post every day, sometimes multiple times a day, just talking in front of a camera, telling stories about her nights bartending and making drink recommendations.
Six months in, she had grown her following to 100,000. But nothing had reached the mega-million view status that she had achieved before.
Then, Michelle came across the account of another creator. Each video had over a million views, and she had 800,000 followers. This was the kind of fame she had been searching for.
“And all her videos were just her at her house, acting out situations that are relatable, that are funny — things that customers had said,” Michelle said. “And I thought, ‘Well, shoot, I can do this.’”
In January, she made a video acting out the importance of listening to your server when they offer a warning about certain menu items. It quickly got over a million views.
“I guess this is just what TikTok wants from me,” she thought.
So that’s what she did. She continues to post re-enactments of new interactions and memories she has had with customers both as a server and as a bartender. By June, just a little over a year since she first downloaded the app, Michelle hit 1 million followers. And by October, she doubled that to 2 million.
A day in the life
Michelle is used to long nights, often waking up in the morning around 1 p.m. Michelle works at Two Buck Saloon in the Belmont neighborhood, near Plaza Midwood in Charlotte. Before each shift, she goes in about 30 minutes early so she can film her daily video at the bar but before it gets too crowded. She turns on the light and starts the music.
During the week, the afternoons are relaxed, which gives her the opportunity to finish filming, write out her captions, edit the footage and reply to comments.
She films right in front of the computer behind the bar because the lighting is best. And she always makes sure to follow the 180-degree rule of filming. When she is on one side of the bar, acting out the server role, she keeps the camera in the same spot when she switches to the other side, acting out the customer role. That way, it looks like a real conversation between characters.
With a daily commitment to posting, sometimes she has to brainstorm new videos, drawing on memories, conversations with friends and just funny moments from past nights. When something happens that she knows would make for a good video, she will tell the customer right then.
“This is TikTok material, right here,” she’ll say.
But when she can’t think of something, Michelle will go on TikTok herself, looking for any on-the-rise trends she can try out. Sometimes, she will Google, “What not to say to bartenders,” to help jog her memory of past encounters. She also has voice recordings saved on her phone with ideas she wanted to create but didn’t have fully formed yet.
Michelle doesn’t write out a script. Rather, she plans out a rough outline of each section in her head to keep the costume changes to a minimum. After each take, she’ll watch it back and determine if its works — if the lighting is good, if it’s funny enough, or even if she just thinks she needs to widen her smile..
When she already has an idea in mind, the filming process is quick. And on a really good day, she plans content out for the week and has to force herself not to post it all immediately.
The whole process takes on average about an hour and a half.
“Sometimes I can get it in one take, and sometimes it takes me 20 takes to say, ‘Hey, can I get a White Claw,’” she said.
From bartending TikTok to pregnancy TikTok
Michelle learned by trial and error through her first year of posting that finding a hyper-specific niche is crucial to TikTok fame. Michelle became the Internet’s bartender, offering a mix of entertainment, tricks and drink recommendations.
Then, Michelle was thrown a curveball: She was pregnant.
Michelle found out on May 18, the night of one of her best friend’s birthdays and a night she had planned to spend partying. When they got to her favorite bar, and the bartender asked her what she wanted, she just started crying.
She wasn’t upset about the pregnancy, in fact, she and Justin had been trying to have a child for more than a year. But it was a sudden lifestyle change, one that would carry over into her burgeoning online career.
A few days later she told the Internet, briefly announcing it as a preface to her recipe for a margarita mocktail. That video quickly reached 10 million views.
“I can’t wait to go on this journey with you!” commenters said.
“I was like, ‘You guys want to come on it with me?”
So she adapted her page to a new subgenre: pregnancy TikTok. She aims to talk openly about her pregnancy, how the baby keeps her up at night, the stresses of picking a name and more.
Now pregnancy updates are an undeniable part of her content. She announced the gender of the baby, a boy, by creating a color-changing cocktail on camera. And anticipation for a name reveal is building in her comments.
She has also continued her previous bartending content. After consulting with her doctor, she decided that on occasions when she needs to try a new drink before recommending or serving it, she takes a sip through a straw and quickly spits it out.
Her work life has barely changed. Some of her coworkers insist on lifting supplies and changing the kegs for her, and they always ask if she needs food. And she still gets to interact with old and new customers, gathering stories.
One night, a customer came in already drunk, ordered one round and immediately closed out. At the end of the night, he approached the bar and said he wanted to buy Michelle a drink. She told him she was pregnant and kept explaining how she can’t drink it. But he was insistent. Finally they settled on a compromise. She rang up a shot of tequila in the register, took out a Post-It Note, wrote out her name and “shot of Jaeger”, then stuck it next to the register.
“This is Michelle’s shot of Jaeger that in four months, I get to drink,” she said.
A local celebrity
It’s gotten to a point where Michelle feels like people care about her as a person. Not as a bartender, not as an influencer sharing her pregnancy journey. Just as Michelle.
She gets recognized at Two Buck Saloon often, with people asking if she is “that TikTok bartender.” People have even sought out the bar specifically for the chance to meet her.
Once, Michelle noticed a 10-year-old girl staring at her, shocked, in the grocery store. Michelle wanted to make the moment special, so she bent down and asked for her TikTok username, giving her a follow.
“You’re really making her day,” her mom said.
“I was like, ‘Well she kind of made my day,’” Michelle said. “I don’t get recognized outside of the bar very often.”
“It was a really cool experience and it really made me think that I should be a lot more careful about things on TikTok, because I realized that really young people are watching my stuff and looking up to me.”
An apology
At first, when Michelle would show her friends and family her first viral video, they would laugh.
“I got made fun of a lot when I first started TikTok,” she said. “And they’re not making fun of me anymore.”
And don’t worry — Justin has since apologized for his earlier doubts about the profitability of the app.
Michelle primarily makes money on TikTok through sponsored posts. Initially, businesses would approach her with an offer to try a product in exchange for a video highlighting it. But she never knew what to charge for this kind of advertising. There was no “how-to” guide for TikTok sponsorships.
Now, after a year of growing her following, researching the creator economy and learning about how to be an influencer, Michelle understands that her TikTok account is a business. One thing that has stayed constant: She always tests the product herself before deciding if she wants to promote it.
Because she has over a million followers, Michelle is considered a mega creator, and the recommended starting rate for one sponsored post is $2,000. “I have been underselling myself,” she realized.
As she’s learned more about the business side of social media, she realized that the cost of each post reflects the work that is put into not just one video, but into her platform as a whole.
“I’m the producer, I’m the actress, I’m the editor, I’m the director, everything,” she said. “So I’m realizing the value in that, and they’re actually paying me not just for making a post that takes an hour to make — they’re paying me for the hours and hours and research and the year of posting consistently to get my following to where it is. They’re paying me for that.”
This story was originally published October 21, 2021 at 6:30 AM.
