When seeing junior Rocco George in the hallways, one may think he is just another impeccably well dressed average guy. What students at HHS may not know, is that George is a musician, has a large following on popular app tik-tok, and has his own clothing line. 

In the past year or so, an app entitled “tik-tok”, formally known as “musically”, has taken the world by storm. On the app users create videos which can entail new dances, comedy, and many other things. George has encompassed a large following of one hundred sixty four thousand people on tik-tok. He began his tik-tok career after his friends encouraged him to share his creativity by posting funny skits, and when one of his videos went super viral he gained a consistent following and started posting a lot more. 

Constantly coming up with new video ideas can be really challenging, but with Geroge’s creativity, the task is simple. His profile includes videos of him singing covers or original songs, posts about his Philipino heritage (which are his most popular videos), and comedy sketches with his best friends.

“I just try to be myself and post things that I find funny, and anything that can make anybody’s day,” George said. “I’m just trying to make people laugh.”

George has become so popular on the app that he has made many online friends, and is sometimes paid up to fifty dollars per ad to sponsor brands. In the future, he plans to meet up with his fellow creators to build their brands, and eventually push all of his videos to build his music career.

George has been passionate about making music for a long time now, and is just trying to create his own style while drawing inspiration from a multitude of genres. He has been making music for a long time now and not only does he draw inspiration from genres, but from people and his heritage as well.

“I started recording music in 2017 because my brother inspired me and my philipino heritage is rooted in karaoke so my love for music comes from there,” George said. “I went to a home studio with my friends to start recording, and even though I was pretty bad because I was fourteen, it was already a lot of fun.”

Since he’s worked on his music and improved, George has begun to write his own songs about his personal life and many other things.

“A song either starts with a specific idea or just surfing through beats, and then I start writing lyrics, talking inspo from my personal life, pop culture, girls, or I just freestyle off my head,” George said. “I then hop on the mic, start singing, and post my songs and distribute them to soundcloud, spotify, apple music, and all other platforms.”

All of this is not a job done by George himself though. He has many friends who help him produce his music.

“Senior Jake Laifer is my main producer,” George said. “A record label reached out to me and gave me a shot, so Anthony Donaddio, a former student at HHS, is gonna send them a demo. So I can network and collaborate with a lot of people.”

While maintaining his music and tik-tok career, George also manages a clothing company he created called “Atlantic”. 

“I always loved creating stuff so i wanted to make things with clothes,” George said. I always saw myself as a fashion forward guy so I put my fashion and creativity together to create Atlantic.”

When the creation of his clothing business was still in the works, the idea needed funding. With his creative drive, this was no problem for George.

“I went to Costco and bought a ton of packs of skittles,” George said. “ I raised money by selling the skittles out of my backpack for a month straight to get the funding.”

After learning how to initially run a business, the clothing line took off and as a result of his tik-tok fame, people from all over the country buy his clothes. Since it has been so successful, George plans to continue the company throughout college and hopes to study business and maybe be an entrepreneur. 

Despite his passion for all of his hobbies, George’s main focus is his music career. He is willing to do whatever it takes, so look out for him in the future and listen to his new song Soda out on all platforms.