13 Breakout TikTok Stars We Couldn’t Stop Watching in 2021, From Emily Mariko to Khaby Lame

With each passing year, TikTok creators only get weirder and more ambitious, unlocking new routes to virality on the most popular website in the world (seriously—it’s bigger than Google now).

In 2021, there were the already established celebs who latched onto the app—Lil Nas X and Olivia Rodrigo were inescapable presences, Taylor Swift and Beyoncé are on there now, and then there was… whatever Charlie Puth and Jack Black were doing. But beyond those bona fide bigwigs was a crop of creators who rose up out of relative obscurity to dominate our FYP pages. Below, see 13 of the ones who broke big this year—because gorgeous, gorgeous girls love soup lists.

Emily Mariko (@emilymariko)

The appeal of Emily Mariko is either bemusing or all-consuming (depending on your patience for attractive influencers), but it was simply unignorable if you were on the app this year. That’s largely due to three little words: salmon rice bowl. The Bay Area lifestyle blogger went viral for her suspiciously simple lunch recipe, which involves smashing chunks of leftover salmon into plates of reheated rice and zhuzhing it up with seaweed, mayo, and strategically placed ice cubes. Beyond that one, the rest of Mariko’s content is pretty simple, which is to say it’s either totally dull or totally compelling, depending on whether you’re into clips of Mariko cooking and cleaning, soundtracked by brain-tingling ASMR sounds. The obsession may be confusing to some, but to quote a popular TikTok sound, it’s an obsession that doesn’t hurt anyone.

Rachel Sandy (@rachelsandy)

If you’re a sucker for cover songs, Rachel Sandy is going to blow your damn mind. The London-based 18-year-old specializes in spot-on musical impersonations of pop artists from Lorde and Taylor Swift to Mitski and Phoebe Bridgers, taking elements and clichés of their music and crafting parody songs that mimic their styles. It’s a one-woman undertaking: Sandy does guitars, drums, vocals, production, and all the rest, winning over fans like Maggie Rogers and Charlie Puth, who both admitted Sandy’s impersonations of them were freakishly on point.

The Old Gays (@oldgays)

Just call them the Golden Girls for the TikTok age. The “Old Gays” are a foursome of friends in their sixties and seventies—Bill Lyons, Jessay Martin, Mick Peterson, and Robert Reeves—who live together outside of Palm Springs. They first popped up in promo videos for Grindr, and have since launched a TikTok account where they mostly partake in various viral trends and dances, alongside the occasional intimate clip of them sharing their coming-out journeys or reflecting on the loves of their lives. Their shtick has struck a chord: Rihanna loves them, Drew Barrymore’s had them on her talk show, and there’s even a docuseries about their lives in the works.

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Jonathan Graziano (@jongraz)

Forget astrology, forget tarot cards, forget fortune cookies. TikTok’s holy oracle this year was Noodle, a geriatric pug who predicts what kind of day it’s going to be by either standing upright when Graziano hoists him up (a “bones day”) or by flopping back down into his cushy bed (a “no bones day”). The former means the sun’s out, spirits are high, and you should tackle the day head-on; the latter means you shouldn’t even bother. Chalk up the viral success to our desperate need for pandemic entertainment or just to genuine cuteness, but either way, Noodle’s shrewdness was an addictive treat this year.

PinkPantheress (@pinkpantheress)

If you come across a “best of 2021” music list without PinkPantheress on it, you should take that as a red flag. Just sayin’. The British DIY singer and producer conquered TikTok this year with her hooky but fleeting songs. And what they lack in duration, they make up for with an addictive blend of simmering lo-fi beats, coy lyrics sung in sweet, whispery vocals, and a nifty arsenal of U.K. garage samples. Even cooler is the 20-year-old’s enigmatic image—taking a page from H.E.R.’s book, she initially obscured her identity, only showing her full face to viewers after several months, and continues to hide her real name from the public. The craze over her snippet-sized music led to the October release of her debut mixtape, to hell with it: a soft launch for what will hopefully be a full-length album in 2022.

Johnny Cirillo (@watchingnewyork)

TikTok is crammed with wannabe fashion influencers, but most of them look like imitative try-hards compared to the Manhattanites featured on “Watching New York.” After originally launching as an Instagram account in 2016, photographer Johnny Cirillo brought his series to TikTok in February, where he’s taken over users’ FYP pages with his street-style diaries. His videos involve him photographing regular New Yorkers across the city and giving them the paparazzi treatment, sans stylists or glam teams. (According to Vogue, Cirillo uses a 200mm lens to photograph his subjects, then gets their permission to upload the pics and videos online.) It’s real people with real, often eccentric style, and it’ll make you feel like a frumpy plebe in comparison—while also probably inspiring you to get weird.

Gabrielle Williams (@gabby.jaye)

Gabrielle Williams, a 32-year-old self-taught baker from Georgia, has carved out a niche for herself as the “original Disney movie food series creator,” as her TikTok bio proudly touts. Her recreation of the iconic ratatouille from the animated film took off first, and she’s since brought other dishes from childhood flicks to life, from Tiana’s beignets and gumbo from The Princess and the Frog and Kronk’s spinach puffs from The Emperor’s New Groove to the Pizza Planet pizza from Toy Story. It’s part kitchen craftiness and part nostalgia: a winning combo on any corner of the internet.

Dave FitDad Ogleton (@fitdadceo)

If you’re trying to get a parent into TikTok, this is probably a solid entry point for them. Dave Ogleton is a dad of six kids and wellness coach-turned-TikTok comedian who’s gone viral for his family-friendly twist on dad jokes. His “No Dummy” series begins with a recap of a question he asks one of his kids, along with their punny response. Then he goes, “I said ‘No, dummy,’” with an always-exasperated pause, and proceeds to give the even funnier punchline. It’s all done with a straight face and deadpan delivery, and punctuated with a dramatic sound effect that makes the whole thing even sillier.

Emily Zugay (@emilyzugay)

The savviest TikTok creators know that engaging brands is a surefire trick to going viral, and Emily Zugay took that to epic heights this year with her hilarious redesigns of brand logos. “I graduated college with a degree in design and I redesigned some popular logos I think we can all agree are ugly,” Zugay says in the Sept. 8 video that started it all. In her vids, Zugay critiques and then redesigns logos in a monotone, expressionless voice, and her graphic design “expertise” has had basically every big brand you can think of reaching out to get in on the game—from the NFL and NASA to Amazon and Apple. Zugay was even hired to design an “Ugly Holiday Cup Collection” for Panera this year, so yeah, ugly is cool (and profitable) now.

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Chef Puff (@thatlittlepuff)

OK, so you have kitchen whizzes like the aforementioned Gabrielle Williams taking over TikTok, and then you have… Chef Puff. This is a two-year-old ragdoll cat (yes, seriously) that has racked up over 20 million followers (again, seriously) with clips of him “cooking” and trying different food hacks. Weirdness works on TikTok, and Chef Puff is living proof.

Francis Bourgeois (@francis.bourgeois)

In what is an actual storyline from Paddington 2, a boy who loves trains grows into a pre-teen who’s embarrassed by his craze for trains, then becomes a young adult who reclaims his obsession for the good of those around him. Francis Bourgeois is an English train enthusiast who makes TikToks about his trainspotting adventures across the U.K., teaching his nearly 2 million followers all about types of locomotives, track routes, et cetera. It’s wholesome, nerdy fun; Bourgeois gets giggly when he spots a rare train, and his enthusiasm—self-captured via quirky camera angles with a GoPro—is infectious. More than that, he’s also become an exemplar for not suppressing your passions to fit the norm. Go, Francis.

SylvanianDrama (@sylvaniandrama)

Academy Awards, listen up. This gem of a TikTok account posts gripping dramas about murder, adultery, cults, and other salacious scandals. The twist is that the vids star Sylvanian Families toys, a line of collectible animal figurines created in Japan in the 1980s. The account is the brainchild of Thea von Engelbrechten, a 19-year-old from Ireland who employs Oscar-worthy sets and costumes for her short, binge-worthy dramas starring the mini woodland creatures. Ever wanted to watch a little mouse spiral because her husband (a cow) was cheating on her, then cheer on the mouse as her new lover (a rabbit) runs his car into the cheating cow’s wedding to his new wife—all soundtracked by “Mr. Brightside?” Then you’re in luck.

Khabane Lame (@khaby.lame)

And finally, you can’t have a 2021 TikTok recap without mentioning the unimpeachable Khaby Lane, who’s now the second most popular user on the app, behind only Gen Z queen Charli D’Amelio. Lame, who was born in Senegal and lives in Italy, first used TikTok to post clips of him dancing and watching video games. The usual fare. Then earlier this year, he began mocking overly complicated life-hack videos, which blasted him to viral fame. His videos begin with a clip of some ridiculous lifestyle hack—a simple task performed in some unnecessarily complicated way—then cut to Lame reacting to them with a wordless shrug; he’s basically the personification of “SMH.” The combination of deadpan humor and silent delivery has made him a global phenomenon, and he’s scored collaborations with everyone from Naomi Campbell and Greta Thunberg to Ed Sheeran. Charli is shaking!