Sharing the love

Jessica Kramer chats with two influencers with local ties, and discovers behind both women is a desire to bring joy and positivity to their viewers

Jordana Grace of @thejordanagrace, known as ‘That British Girl’ across social media, and Bridget Chant of @chantyb97 may have completely different content on their social media platforms, but they have more in common than the average viewer may realise.

Both women launched their TikTok creation around the same time: 2020, in the throes of a global pandemic.

“It was smack bang during Covid, and I worked in retail so there was no point in me coming into work at all; I was living on my own at the time with my parrot (Hamlet), who had just begun talking,” Bridget recalls.

“People started posting minimal things on TikTok, not even to get any views – just as some sort of project to document cute fun stuff that I found enjoyment in, like people would post their dogs and stuff like that.

“So I was like ‘Oh well I haven’t seen a parrot on here, so why not give that a go?’ and I started posting videos of him saying the things he would say, as well as I would caption the things I would think he’s saying in his head as well,” she says.

For Jordana, it was a similar story.

“I was stranded here in Australia in 2020 after coming over from the UK for a visit,” she explains.

“During Covid I was so bored, just scrolling Insta, and my 12-year-old cousin introduced me to TikTok.

“I’ve always been a creative person, and I made my first ‘Things they should tell you before moving to Australia’ and got a couple of hundred views; then my fifth video about Kmart went viral,” Jordana says.

For both Jordana and Bridget, what keeps them coming back is the joy and laughter they can give their viewers.

“Initially I would just show my friends and the people that matter and be happy with that, but then it started to grow with evergrowing feedback I received from so many people, saying ‘this is really cute’ and ‘this is really funny’, ‘this made my day’,” Bridget says.

“And that drove me to go on – that not only am I making myself laugh, I’m making other people laugh.”

Jordana’s comment is similar:

“I love my ideas coming to life and interacting with people, especially getting comments like ‘I enjoyed that’, ‘that uplifted me’ or ‘that made my day’,” she says.

“You need to make sure you’re doing it for the right reasons, with love and integrity, and try to bring the light.”

It’s been quite the journey for Jordana, who recalls her first ever TikTok was filmed in landscape, and has included a literal journey moving from the UK to Australia permanently.

“I went back home in July last year for two months and made the official decision to move here, and shipped everything over,” she explains.

“I just love Australia, the people are lovely, the coffee is fantastic, it’s dry and sunny and warm – I can be outdoors every day, whereas in the UK I’d spend six months of the year inside. It’s just the everyday life that’s incredible.”

While she misses the classic joy of a British cup of tea, some of Jordana’s favourite Aussie things are chicken salt and having watermelon available all the time.

She also enjoys capturing the unique differences between the two cultures on her TikTok, with two happenings making the top of the list for odd experiences:

“Getting milk for the first time here was strange – there’s so many choices! And the first time I saw an ibis: everyone else was so nonchalant about it walking around, meanwhile it’s the height of the table and looks like a dinosaur!” she laughs.

Coming up with ideas for content is never an issue for Jordana, but sometimes the confidence to film is tricky.

“Some days I feel like the most beautiful girl in the world, then other days I feel like a troll potato,” she says.

“There’s also the pressure to be brilliant and perfect all the time.”

With followers now numbering more than 290,000 on TikTok and 10.3 million likes, it took a little while for her family to realise how well-known Jordana had become.

“We were having a picnic at the Carnival of Flowers with my dad, my dad’s wife Pam, and

Pam’s father, and someone came up because they recognised me.

“I hadn’t even spoken yet and my dad said ‘I made her!’, Pam said ‘I helped raise her!’ and Pam’s dad said ‘what’s tik tack?’,” Jordana laughs.

Becoming more prominent in the social media sphere – now being recognised about three times a week, especially if out shopping – has led Jordana to cement her own guidelines on her brand.

“If I’m stressed I don’t post, and I make sure I’m not too emotionally involved or drained by it.”

While her identity being so closely tied to her creativity means what you see on TikTok is what you get, Jordana is also careful to not have any kids or strangers in her videos because of permissions, and also has in place a boundary for herself that if she’s with friends, she’s not filming or making TikToks. Bridget has similarly put guides in place for privacy and safety while creating in such a public space.

“I didn’t really have to take it seriously until I got verified on TikTok, which was a big deal for me, and I think that was also the day I went ‘oh, okay’, and I stopped showing my work lanyard in videos, I don’t talk about my job – I just say ‘I work in retail’ – and I don’t give away like where I live,” she says as an example.

“It’s just initial steps that I’ll also be taking in the future, precautions that I’ve had to start keeping.”

Fortunately, a lot of her content is based around her Indian Ringneck parrot, Hamlet, who she got around the end of 2018 at a couple of months old after moving into her own place.

“Growing up from the age of about 10, my parents had bought me a cockatiel. I was a very anxious kid who has a lot of inner thoughts that she didn’t know how to express and everything, so Mum and Dad thought it was a good idea to give me some sort of pet that I had an interest in and I would be responsible for and doing that would give me something to look after rather than constantly having to be thinking of myself and everything,” Bridget explains.

“I had her for ten years, and by the time she passed away I’d moved out of home and come back to Toowoomba, and was trying to make a world of my own.

“So I thought, what’s something that I know that I can look after, that will give me comfort, company, and will make a place more home; so I decided I would get myself a pet and it would be another bird because it was something else familiar: you don’t have to take it on walks every day, you can keep it with you in the house and it becomes extremely attached and personal.”

While Bridget knew the species had the capacity to mimic and make sounds, she didn’t at all expect Hamlet to start talking.

“I noticed he’d make sounds we had around the house, like a whistle or something like that, and I noticed he’d take on particular things that he enjoyed hearing rather than stuff that I would initially try to encourage.”

One of Hamlet’s most repeated phrases is ‘What doing?’, which he picked up from Bridget’s first words to him after coming home at the end of the day.

“It’s changed since the first time he said it –it doesn’t sound like me anymore, he’s made it into his own voice.”

Due to working with an animal and not being able to script Hamlet, most of Bridget’s content is unplanned.

“Hamlet’s words stay the same in most videos, the only difference is what I do, so a lot of the time it’s an improvised video,” she explains.

“It’s very natural, and a lot of the time I have to quickly think of an answer that he said in his head that I have to respond to capture it.

“So they are spontaneous, but they kind of have to be because as soon as there is planning, you can tell.

“Hamlet will never do the right thing, he can’t be directed, and so a lot of the time I can push an idea in a direction but I can never achieve something that I’ve written down on paper, which to me I find really exciting.

“As soon as I start planning it, it starts to become rigid and the fun goes away. And so the excitement of it also keeps alive the fact that he can say the same thing over and over again and it’s rare to hear you get sick of it because each time he says it, it’s with a different context.”

Both Bridget and Jordana recommend anyone wanting to try making social media content to ‘just go for it’.

“Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there,” Jordana says.

“Find something that brings you joy, not something that you’re looking to put out because it’ll be popular – everybody does that,” Bridget adds.

“Something that brings to you joy, genuine joy; people read genuine so easily and they also read fake really easily.

“As long as you’re being true to what makes you happy, and you’re sharing that.”