Every city seems to have them. Those gilded neighborhoods with impossibly huge houses, a series of luxury cars, gigantic yards, etc. But how? How do so many people have so much money?
That’s the question Aaron Vankampen, a freelance location scout in Toronto, has been asking homeowners for months. The answers he gets have provided plenty of fodder for his TikTok account, which has exploded since he posted Part 1 in early November:
“Before that, I worked as a location scout and as bartending,” Vankampen explains to MarketWatch. “The pandemic hit and I noticed I had a lot of free time. I was looking for something related to that time. “
So he let his curiosity be his guide and started wandering the local upscale neighborhoods and asking questions. His most watched TikTok, including lawyers, Teslas TSLA,
and a ‘dream worker’, has been clicked no less than 35 million times:
Vankampen’s rise to TikTok fame has been lightning fast, with over 1 million followers in less than two months. As their responses suggest, the interviewees were generally friendly and easygoing when approached by the door-to-door TikToker.
However, he said a strange issue has arisen. For example, he was chased from an estate by a guard dog. “I have learned and will now never approach a house with a ‘beware of the dog’ sign, he said.
In the next phase of his social media plans, Vankampen plans to shift his reach beyond Toronto once travel restrictions ease and visit homes around the world. Would he receive the same warm reception in New York City, say, as in Canada? Maybe one day we’ll find out.
In the meantime, he’s also launching his YouTube channel, with a view to expanding the interviews without the TikTok time restrictions, and ideally making some money in the process.
“My plan is to stay inspiring, if I can find a way to make money and inspire my followers at the same time, that’s what I’ll do,” he said.