Immediately noticeable with her bright pink hair, Chrissy Chlapecka (@chrissychlapecka) launched her content for 2023 by strutting down a sidewalk in near-zero degree weather, wearing only a bikini, a neon-pink faux-fur coat, and thigh-high boots as she sang her lyrics, “I’m so hot I’d fuck myself.”
In an interview with Passionfruit, Chlapecka, who has over 5 million TikTok followers, spoke on the evolution of her career as a content creator leading up to the release of her debut single “I’m So Hot,” providing insight and advice for aspiring creators.
Chlapecka said their career as a content creator was largely serendipitous, with their earliest encounters with virality deriving from comedic videos posted for themself and their friends.
She explained these videos became an avenue for the self-confidence and hyper-femininity that she previously felt confined from, having just left an abusive relationship and dropped out of musical theater studies in college.
“I really started connecting with myself, my own humor, my sexuality, and how I wanted to present myself to the world. That’s how it sparked for me,” Chlapecka said.
Early on in her content creation, Chlapecka’s followers began labeling her as a “bimbo,” notably including her friend and fellow bimbo Griffin Maxwell Brooks (@griffinmaxwellbrooks). Chlapecka ran with it.
“That was just who I am,” Chlapecka said. “It wasn’t making fun of anything, but it was like, I am a bimbo.”
Chlapecka, who uses she/they pronouns, proudly reclaimed the bimbo title as a quintessential component of her proudly anti-capitalist, queer, and hyper-feminine content.
“I was reclaiming my body and my sexuality and really becoming in touch with my femininity,” Chlapecka said. “I was so afraid of perception from other people, but this was really fun because that journey just became a self-love journey. And I kind of figured out who Chrissy was along the way.”
As Chlapecka helmed the bimbo label, they became a widely recognizable face for the title’s ongoing modern resurgence. The bimbo label became emblematic of a cultural movement that attempts to scrutinize the absurdity of gender norms. Many TikTok users resonated with Chlaplecka’s comedic take on the movement, and a loyal audience followed.
As her audience initially developed, Chlapecka’s strategy included consistency. They would consistently post at 1 p.m. in front of the same pink shower curtain to grab the attention of their followers.
At the same time and place every day, followers would watch Chlapecka’s humorous videos, where they might ask pressing questions along the lines of, “Are you being a bisexual slut today?”
Chlapecka said she’s unsure of how much that specific strategy worked, though she said she would probably still note consistency as advice to emerging creators. The most vital advice they would offer is to be vulnerable and authentic—though they do admit creating content with a balance of authenticity and potential for virality is difficult.
“I will say that it is definitely a hard thing to do because there is that sense of wanting to stay viral and wanting people to think [the videos] are funny,” Chlapecka said. “Realize that maybe your most vulnerable videos aren’t going to get all the traction you want, but also understand that those are very important and vital parts of your career.”
Chlapecka also said a key component of her success is the community she’s built with her followers. “I think it’s just really important to care about your fans and always take what they say and how they react into account,” Chlapecka said.
As Chlapecka’s following grew, she realized she could use her social following to bolster a career in music. Unlike with the confines of musical theater, this platform was a new avenue to express her pink-hair, tattooed whimsy without sacrificing her career ambitions.
Starting with the idea for the lyric “I’m so hot I’d fuck myself,” they worked with producers and writers to create the debut single “I’m So Hot.” For Chlapecka, this song would be an anthem of self-love and self-pleasure.
“I think the song means a lot to me because, throughout the years, I really had struggled with self-love and self-confidence and had gone through a lot of situations where I felt like my body was damaged or I didn’t feel comfortable within my sexuality,” Chlapecka said. “It has been a really important part of my journey of learning how to reclaim my body and love myself.”
While planning to promote the single, Chlapecka knew it would be important to intentionally consider how to transfer her followers from TikTok to Spotify. For Chlapecka, that meant using her song as a central element in content, capturing the precise essence which intrigued her audience in the first place.
From there, Chlapecka launched the promotion of their single in a classically-Chrissy manner—wearing a pink and silver bikini in near-zero weather, singing the lyrics of her song.
Her strategy worked. The initial video drew 3.5 million views and over 700,000 likes. The TikTok sound for the promotion of her single has over 13,000 videos, with many TikTok users expressing the unabashed confidence and self-expression that inspired Chlapecka.
Once the single released, it reached 2 million streams in 3 weeks. While Chlapecka is immensely proud of how her debut single has performed, she said the entire experience was an immense learning process as she was finally able to conceptualize what musical artists go through.
“People were getting really upset that the song wasn’t right in their hands the second they heard it online, which I think was a pretty good learning experience for me,” Chlapecka said. “I might have teased it a little too early. Maybe I should have waited a week later or something. I still think it did fine.”
Chlapecka is excited to continue releasing music and even has plans to release a second single in the coming months. But they don’t plan to stop creating content anytime soon. In addition to continuing to create content and release music, Chlapecka will be performing at VidCon Anaheim in June 2023.
“As a creator, I want to just keep creating content that is exciting for my fans while also letting them into the world of Chrissy as an artist and musician too,” Chlapecka said.
