“Oh my God! You’re the woman from ‘The Polar Specific,’” a vacationer yelled at Nia Wilkerson.
Wearing a pink nightgown, Ms. Wilkerson was dancing in entrance of the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Middle in Midtown Manhattan for a TikTok video.
Over the course of the following two hours on Monday afternoon, dozens extra folks stopped and stared. A lot of them filmed her from afar or requested to take selfies along with her.
“Wait, are you actually the woman from the film?” a passer-by requested.
The reply to that query isn’t any. Ms. Wilkerson, a senior at St. John’s College in Queens, was 3 years previous in 2004, when “The Polar Specific” was launched.
Ms. Wilkerson, 22, mentioned that ever since she was an elementary faculty pupil in Woodbridge, Va., folks had been telling her she appears to be like like Hero Lady, a personality within the movie who’s also referred to as Holly. Later, a highschool crush identified the resemblance.
“That was heartbreaking,” she joked.
Since then, Ms. Wilkerson, who stands 5 foot tall, has come to embrace her digital doppelgänger. That is the fourth vacation season she has spent making TikTok movies within the guise of Hero Lady. Every year, her recognition has grown. She now has almost a 250,000 followers.
Ms. Wilkerson mentioned she received the thought after seeing one other lady on TikTok cosplaying because the character. “However she didn’t actually appear like her,” she mentioned.
In “The Polar Specific,” Holly wears pigtails and a patterned pink nightgown. Ms. Wilkerson goes with a variation on the search for her TikToks.
“It’s a seasonal gig,” she mentioned, including that she was lately swarmed by folks in Elmo costumes whereas making a video in Occasions Sq..
Accompanying her on Monday had been a number of of her St. John’s classmates, who acted as her unpaid movie crew. “My friendship is my fee,” Ms. Wilkerson joked, including she had purchased the group meals on the campus eating corridor throughout the weeks of filming.
She used to undergo from social anxiousness, she mentioned, however her TikTok alter ego has helped her overcome it. “Nobody in New York cares,” she mentioned. “I might by no means do that anyplace else.”
Ms. Wilkerson, who’s learning tv and movie at St. John’s, has discovered methods to revenue from her quarter-hour of seasonal fame. She participates in TikTok’s creator fund, a program that the corporate makes use of to pays sure individuals who make movies for the platform, she mentioned. Musicians have reached out to her about making movies, she added. Her price is about $250 per video, she mentioned. Exterior of the vacation season, she makes movies on different subjects, however her views drop off precipitously.
Whereas a lot of the suggestions has been constructive, Ms. Wilkerson mentioned she not learn the replies to her movies, after having seen too many racist feedback. Nonetheless, there have been upsides to her social media fame, like a latest collaboration with @jerseyyjoe, a well-liked TikTok creator identified for his dance strikes who generally makes movies dressed as Hero Boy from “The Polar Specific.”
After a day of taking pictures, Ms. Wilkerson and her buddies mentioned their upcoming last exams whereas ready for an F prepare on a subway station platform. Ms. Wilkerson talked about an earlier subway video, throughout which she had unintentionally kicked a passenger.
After boarding a rush-hour prepare automobile, they wriggled into formation to movie one other TikTok. One among Ms. Wilkerson’s buddies, Amanda Gopie, 20, pointed at an indication that learn: “Don’t be somebody’s subway story. Courtesy counts.”
“That’s you,” Ms. Gopie mentioned, to laughs from the others within the group.
Because the F prepare rolled towards Queens, Ms. Wilkerson and her buddies recorded themselves singing “When Christmas Involves City,” a music from “The Polar Specific.”
“One of the best time of the yr, when everybody comes dwelling,” Ms. Wilkerson started.
As her buddies joined in to type a shaky refrain, a couple of riders perked their heads up in recognition. One informed the singers to work on their pitch. The group determined they’d strive one other take.