When TikTookay sensation Ann Russell (under) tells me about her life to this point – bullied at boarding college, an ‘unspeakable’ first marriage, a long time working cleansing shifts whereas elevating 4 youngsters on ‘no money’ and a 2023 most cancers analysis – she appears to be like shocked after I counsel she’s had a tricky time of it.
Ann Russell, 62
Hard life or not, resilience has been inbuilt alongside the way in which. Russell was residing along with her grandmother in Barnes, Southwest London (she gained’t say why), when she was despatched to boarding college at 12 and tells me she has been ‘largely self- sufficient from a young age’.
‘I rely on me,’ she says, including that though citing her youngsters (now aged between 30 and 40) whereas working all hours was exhausting, ‘You just have to get on with it. It’s not like you’ll be able to say, “I don’t want to do this.” There isn’t any choice however to take care of the scenario in entrance of you and carry on coping with it.’
Given her distinctly un-snowflakey angle, it’s maybe shocking that, at 62, Russell has turn into a social-media icon for Gen Z – the technology of teenagers and 20-somethings usually criticised for his or her lack of resilience. Russell, who’s single and lives close to Salisbury, has a staggering 2.8 million followers on TikTookay, the place she dispenses no-nonsense recommendation on cleansing, laundry, private finance and every thing in between. Her knowledge has been compiled into three books, the most recent of which is How To Be An Adult.
It’s a standard trope that Boomers all roll their eyes at Gen Z’s incapability to perform IRL (web parlance for ‘in real life’), however Russell has a unique view. In reality considered one of her ‘absolute bugbears’ is the smug sorts who remark, ‘I thought everyone knew that’ when she solutions a query from considered one of her younger followers. ‘How are you meant to know something if nobody has ever told you?’ she says. Her followers come to her with all method of questions, from easy methods to unblock a bathroom with out a plunger, to ideas for eradicating pen marks from painted partitions. Twenty years working as an expert cleaner, following a protracted stint in hospitality, means Russell has the solutions.
She first joined TikTookay throughout the pandemic, when she discovered herself ‘with nothing to do for the first time in god knows how many years’. She was initially there on the request of her sister to maintain a ‘beady eye’ on her younger niece, who had additionally simply joined TikTookay, however Russell began to make ‘little videos’ herself, together with one filming her canine’s response to fireworks. Russell’s first video to go viral, with 708,000 views, was equally down-to-earth: in it she responds, along with her typical pragmatic supply, to a query about whether or not bay leaves are price including when cooking (the reply is, sure, particularly tomato dishes).
There aren’t any TikTookay dances or viral tune clips right here – Russell holds the digital camera near her make-up-free face (she describes her look as ‘middle-class English old bag’) and speaks matter-of-factly. When I ask her why this method has been so profitable, she places it right down to ‘luck’. In reality, I think it’s her invaluable information gained over six a long time of graft that will get individuals hooked.
When her web fame began to kick off in 2022, Russell’s offspring discovered it bizarre. ‘My son went to a music festival and came back saying, “It was the most bizarre thing.
I was walking past people’s tents and I may hear your voice.”’ Now, she says, her youngsters merely shrug it off.
While Russell could have thousands and thousands of followers, her forthright views have attracted trolls, too. Sometimes she calls them out. ‘I do occasionally answer rude videos because I think it’s necessary to set an instance for youthful individuals,’ she says. Although she doesn’t care concerning the opinions of ‘faceless strangers’ (‘I just think, in the time it’s taken you to write down that hateful remark you may have had a cup of espresso and a Penguin’) she is sympathetic to the plight of teenagers.
‘I understand that if you’re 14 and in your bed room being bullied by your college pals by means of a pc display, that’s an actual drawback. I went to boarding college. When the bullies can get to you 24/7, it’s completely bloody terrible,’ she says.
Russell mentioned she was an ‘odd child’ when she first turned up on the college in Surrey, and even now she doesn’t conform to the standard influencer picture. Although she admits she’s ‘technically a cleanfluencer’ she has no time for ‘those curated “come and do my Sunday reset with me” videos, where they waft into an immaculate room’. Such movies lead individuals into ‘trying to achieve a perfection that doesn’t exist’, Russell says, including, ‘I’m not large on cleansing my very own home. When I’m not being paid, I can’t be bothered.’
With her ‘very basic’ enhancing abilities, Russell will not be one for the excessive manufacturing values of many TikTokers, both. ‘All the other creators I know have got editors and managers and PR people. And then there’s me.’ She has, nonetheless, acquired her finest buddy Jill to behave as her agent, ‘because she knows how to read a contract and she will happily talk about money’. Russell provides, ‘I don’t fairly often get approached for industrial stuff, but when somebody rang me up and mentioned, “Would you do an advert?” I’d say, “Sure, no problem” and that might be the tip of it. Whereas Jill is able to ensuring the contract is true and I’m being paid correctly for it.’
Russell’s earlier work has included adverts for Ariel, Domestos, Fairy and Shelter. She’s hesitant to go too loopy with the promotional content material, although, as a result of, ‘I don’t like making an attempt to encourage individuals to spend cash. I’m keenly conscious, having spent most of my life with none, that persons are continuously on at you to purchase extra stuff you’ll be able to’t afford. It’s fairly demoralising.’
When it involves flogging merchandise on social media, Russell can also be aware of the ‘multiple tons of s**t that nobody needs, floating down the rivers, drifting around, turning up on beaches’. The present obsession with carrying round ludicrously costly big water bottles is a pet hate: ‘You could just go to the tap and have a drink before you leave, and I’m fairly positive you’re not going to die earlier than lunch. Have one other cup of tea at breakfast, you’ll be effective.’
Russell nonetheless cleans part-time, though she says she tires ‘insanely easily’ since her remedy for endometrial most cancers, which she was identified with two years in the past. ‘I used to bike everywhere, but I’d battle to cycle across the block now. I can’t stroll notably far as a result of I begin after which realise, “Oh, apparently I’ve run out of air and my legs have stopped working.”’
Her most cancers was widespread – ‘my uterus, my ovaries, my fallopian tubes; they were all involved’. It was additionally in her lymph system and docs discovered a tumour in her bowel. Russell has had chemotherapy and is now on ‘maintenance immunotherapy’, having posted insightful movies all through her remedy. ‘I thought if I could share the process then somebody else might watch and feel less frightened themselves,’ she explains. ‘Things hurt and were a bit unpleasant, but it wasn’t as ghastly as I anticipated.’
As for the way most cancers has modified her view on life, Russell says, ‘I’m actually not planning on dying any time quickly, however I’m far more conscious now that I’m in all probability not going to make 120.’ In typical sensible fashion, this has inspired her to maintain maintain of her hours working for the native council ‘because they’ve acquired an excellent dying in service profit, and with the price of funerals now that might are available in helpful’.
Russell could have some glorious recommendations on bay leaves and stain elimination to share, but it surely’s her refusal to be bowed that I’m most impressed by. Everyone may be taught a factor or two from that.
How To Be An Adult by Ann Russell is printed by Headline, £14.99. To order a replica for £12.74 till 14 September, go to mailshop.co.uk/books or name 020 3176 2937. Free UK supply on orders over £25