The student behind

By Leah Call LIFESTYLES STAFF REPORTER

Neve Pratt is from Salt Lake City, a first year student at Utah State University and a TikTok viral sensation. Her account @wisewordsfromneve has over 70 videos full of “dad jokes” and awkward eye contact that made Pratt’s popularity on the social media app soar.

“When I toured here, I was kidding around with my guide and I jokingly said that my declared major would be comedy,” Pratt said. “So, this is onbrand.”

Pratt made her first TikTok on Dec. 5, 2022, and has amassed over 248,000 followers, 16 million combined likes and tens of millions of views on her content.

“I made the account for my friends. I had been spewing out dad jokes and they were like, ‘Man, your delivery is killer, you’ve got to make a TikTok,’” she said. “So, I made it for them and decided to post one a day and like, see what happens. It’s the cheesiest thing ever, it’s so funny.”

She had been posting for about two weeks before her account really took off, with a video receiving over 2 million views.

“I did not expect it and was not planning for it to go viral or anything like that,” she said. “I had posted one in the Huntsman Building about finals, like telling people to study and it got 5,000 likes that day. We were all watching it and I was just like, ‘No way.’ I thought that was crazy and that was a lot for me. Then I posted one about finals the next day and I woke up and it had blown up. It was unreal.”

Pratt gets approached by followers and viewers quite often in reference to her videos and account.

“Someone will come up to me and say, ‘Mondays, right?’ or will say how much they love my TikToks,” she said. “I’ve gotten a weird amount of people telling me their boyfriends love me. That’s pretty funny to me.”

Pratt plans videos around holidays or campus events and elicits the help from friends and roommates to film content.

“I just did one about midterms today. But I kind of just go with the flow because I’m finding them on Facebook or I’m coming up with them on my own,” she said. “If I’m coming up with my own jokes, it takes a little bit longer so I plan those out. I’ll be reading jokes out and they’ll be like, ‘That’s it, that’s the one.’ Something will catch their eye and they’ll send it to me. My roommate always knows which ones will go viral, and when they do it’s so funny. And my mom helps too. My mom loves to be all over it and sends me funny ideas and come up with her own stuff, so it’s been fun.”

Pratt’s long-time friend and first year student at USU, Mary Sheets, has been involved in the content creating process from the beginning.

“Her first one blew up right as we were leaving for Christmas break, that finals week,” Sheets said in an interview over the phone. “It was kind of fun because it was blowing up when we were all home for Christmas break and then we got to come back to this big platform. It’s really funny because she gets recognized a lot when we’re out. It’s weird because I’ve been laughing at Neve for years and years so I just think it’s really fun to see her humor being appreciated by more people.”

Pratt said she loves to use her platform to make people smile.

“I’m just doing this to make people smile and laugh. I originally did it to make my friends laugh and now other people feel the same way,” she said.

“I mean from the get go, I decided to post one a day and I’m just going to continue to do that and if it lands, it lands. If it doesn’t go as viral, then it doesn’t go as viral, but I just want to keep up with posting and making people laugh.”

Pratt’s future in content creating is wide open and she is ready for whatever comes next.

“I’ve never thought about doing this before,” she said. “I mean, my major is nursing and that’s always been my plan, so to have this platform and have these opportunities be opening is so surreal to me. If I can make it some sort of career, that would be awesome. I love to do comedy, so we’ll see.”