How Mikayla’s Influence Was So Vast

Mikayla Nogueira (24-year-old makeup artist, vlogger) was showing her method for exfoliating her skin using a combination acid mixture. Her followers noticed that the wall of beauty products that had been her background suddenly disappeared. Nogueira, who posts four videos per day to her followers, didn’t acknowledge the change in scenery, despite all the worried comments.

After a few days, a new video appeared, featuring Nogueira choking back sobs. It was something she never expected to happen, but it did. She bought a home. Nogueira and Cody moved from their Boston apartment to a house in the same area but closer to the ocean. Sailboats can be seen floating in the shimmering harbor, framed by windows on her bedroom’s balcony.

The House That Influence was built at a cost of almost $2.5million. It features four bedrooms and six bathrooms. The basement will likely be used as a home gym. The exterior is reminiscent of Cape Cod, and Nogueira painted its large interiors in white. The wainscoting shines like sunlight. She gives me a tour on a late summer afternoon.

Her fiance’s gaming area is located down the hall from her beauty salon, past the upstairs reading corner. The vanity is filled with recording equipment and a few lights. Beauty products are neatly organized in drawers. A silver totem, the American Influencer Award as Emerging Makeup Artists of the Year, rests on a high shelf.

Nogueira has a huge influence. More than 13 million people have viewed her official TikTok. Her Instagram is growing rapidly and currently has 434,000 followers. Lady Gaga thanked Nogueira once for using Haus Labs’s bronzer.

Nogueira’s influence can also be very expensive. Nogueira refuses to reveal details about her financial situation, except to say that most of her income comes from sponsored posts and affiliate revenue. She also has a GlamLite shadow palette and a line sunglasses made by Dime Optics. Forbes estimates that vloggers with a substantial following charge between $100,000 to $250,000 for each partner post. Nogueira had published six articles the week before she moved.

Visitors to her home will see a variety of floral displays, including one that is so large it can support a forest of orchids. This was sent by corporate sponsors. Nogueira is a brand favorite, as she recommends products with the same enthusiasm that a child explaining their favorite dinosaur.

People love Nogueira because she is one of us. The beauty industry is seeing a lot of populism. Nogueira is an accomplished makeup artist. Nogueira is also a skilled makeup artist, which is almost enough. We love watching our best friend succeed, and when it’s something positive — such as buying her dream home — the views go up.

TikTok strikes noon at 12:01 p.m. Nogueira walks to her posting schedule carrying a collection of pre-filmed videos. She says, «I have five videos that I can choose from and it is up to me which one I choose to post first.» This Boston accent has become her trademark. Will she upload the video of Cody installing an acrylic shelf for nail varnish or the one of her setting up her sunglasses collection on acrylic stands?

Nogueira posts the sunglasses, before reflecting on the more exhausting aspects of social stardom. She can’t recall the last time she took a day off. She is more likely to be recognized if she goes out. However, she has a tendency to feel anxious about social situations and prefers to stay at home. Her followers recently heard her admit that staring at herself, her only job requirement, has started to affect her self-esteem. Nogueira gave this monologue while drawing an eye that looked like a distant nebula. The video was a huge success with many viewers and other creators supporting it. A two-year-old Nogueira clip has resurfaced to much less positive reaction. In the original video, Nogueria replies to a commenter asking her for a job from 9-5. She explains that she works most days between 6 a.m. and 5 p.m. This clip was met with backlash. Critics focused on one quote that was out of context: «I just finished work, it’s 5.19. For a day, try being an influencer. It’s possible. Nogueria posted a TikTok response video on October 1. In it, she apologized for her comments. She also spoke openly about the depression that she has been experiencing over the last few months. She informed followers that she would be «stepping aside from content creation for awhile» in order to concentrate on her mental health, and her relationship with her family.

A contagious passion for makeup and her constant candor have helped Nogueira attract a loyal following. Nogueira’s followers form a community that is greater than the combined population of Los Angeles, Paris and Singapore. She says, «I don’t have just 13 million people who support me.» Nogueira sees her pages like spaces for followers to come together and geek about makeup. Nogueira is happy and able to give back through giveaways and live Q&As. It’s easy to build a following on TikTok. You can post clickbait videos or thirst traps. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that you have a community.

The distinctive r sound in the eastern Massachusetts speech of colonists from southeast England and east England was what made it unique. The dialects of those who stayed on the coast grew into something that was distinctive from the rest in the colonized United States. Nogueira, who was raised south of Boston, produces very few hard-r sounds. TikTok creators often use voiceovers to describe how they set up designer sunglasses. Nogueira’s voice sounds hypnotic and low, with a lot of swear words. She speaks on pure throat muscle. This has made her one of most popular users of one of the most recognizable apps in the history telecommunications.

She says, «I have a very fascinating life story,» and then she pauses. It’s very dark. Nogueira’s family was eccentric and the hometown was small. Nogueira’s mom, an artist and school social workers, dressed her in bright colors and bold prints. She arranged her hair in ponytails, and added clips to them. She recalls that she struggled to fit in, but was eventually surrounded by friends. Nogueira was able to find an audience from a young age.

Nogueira felt alienated in middle school when cliques formed. She was then angry about her feelings of alienation. She says, «I hated the fact that I felt like a part of the group.» She was determined to be different. Her clothes became black and she grew spikes. Her hair was brightly dyed, turning crimson. She was 11. Bullies came and went, but Nogueira was able to handle them.

Because she was growing up, she began to wear makeup. «I have a deep voice, and I am tomboyish. All my friends were men. Because I was a girl at the time, makeup made me feel beautiful. She’s almost laughing. She is almost laughing. «People always ask me, ‘Where did you get your start with makeup?’ It’s like, «I started wearing make-up because I hated my own skin.»

«People always ask me, ‘Where did you get your start with makeup?’ It’s like, «I started wearing make-up because I hated my own skin.»

Nogueira’s audience thinks she is a circus barker selling beauty products. Nogueira’s mouth is a puller for vowel sounds.  She might comment on a newly launched E.L.F. foundation by saying that «they just fickin’ dropped it on me, bro.» Her accent can dim in quiet situations, such as a meeting with her manager, or during interviews. She speaks softly, but clearly, and sometimes dispassionately, especially when she is speaking. You can save emotions for the front-facing camera. She begins to recount the most difficult time of her life at 12 years old, starting with her rape. She says, «That completely changed my whole life.» «That was when I lost my self.»

Her videos were picked up almost immediately on non-social channels, but not in the way she had hoped. Yahoo News published her first press release just days after Nogueira posted her first post: «Catfish queen» covers acne in jaw-dropping footage. She says that it’s disappointing because that’s not the thing she’m trying to accomplish, but she’s come to accept the term for the remarkable transformation it implies. Recent videos include «New Catfish Level unlocked: Expert» as well as «How do you like your catfish cooked?» People wanted tutorials when she posted her face. People asked her for product reviews after she posted tutorials. Nogueira claims that she was gaining hundreds and thousands of followers per day, but is not exaggerating. You can expect to gain about 15,000 followers per day if you have an average of 13.6 million followers in two and a quarter years. This assumes a steady growth rate.

TikTok has experienced rapid growth, but it is not steady. It has changed from a stream to a river and has become seismic. TikTok is still the most downloaded app in the world, despite being discontinued in the first half 2020. It was downloaded more times in 2021 than Snapchat and Zoom combined. TikTok is now second in terms of usership to Instagram and Facebook, despite its slowing growth. Insider Intelligence, a market research firm, estimates that there are 800 million active users. This is one billion people by 2025. Nogueira’s timing for 2020 could not be better. Her success is a sign of a new social media beauty philosophy who uses vanity and vulnerability to make a difference in a way high-production YouTubers or Grammy-winning pop singers simply cannot.

As Nogueira contemplates the demands of her chosen profession, her manager opens a huge package from UrbanStems. She laughs and says «I have had many jobs.» This is the busiest job, but it’s also one of the most rewarding when you do what you love. She doesn’t look up from her phone as she uploads a new post. A line crawls across her screen to show the process. She narrates, «The uploading portion.» Her voice then drops volume a bit, as if she is telling a secret. «That’s because you don’t want it to fail. That’s the scariest.»