MILAN — With dreams of the big screen but Internet in their veins, eight young Italian influencers are racking up followers as they spend their days in a Milan TikTok luxury loft.
Aged between 16 and 20, they sing, dance and pout against the backdrop of the duplex set up by content creator Defhouse as a star academy for the virtual world.
The 500-square-meter (5,340-square-foot) brightly painted loft has bay windows, a huge terrace and a jacuzzi — the perfect backdrop for short videos shared on the TikTok app.
Between them they boast 16 million followers, drawn by the dances, comedy and lip-synching accessed on the popular platform, although their address remains a closely guarded secret.
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Is it talent?
TikTok, owned by the Chinese group ByteDance, has experienced a worldwide boom, driven by long coronavirus quarantines. In Italy, its stars are becoming more and more familiar.
“People recognize me when I walk through the streets of Milan,” said Simone Berlini, a 20-year-old former business management student whose TikTok subscribers have doubled to 2.7 million since October, when Defhouse launched.
