TIKTOK STAR LUKE IS PRIMED FOR FIRST AD WITH TALENT AGENCY

Sales manager’s characters help him pick up 126k followers

A SALES manager from North Staffordshire has signed to a talent agency and released his own merchandise after gaining millions of views on a video sharing app.

Luke Hamnett, from Kidsgrove, has achieved 3.6 million views and more than 126,000 followers on Tiktok – and his popularity is growing by the day.

The 28-year-old is now based in Stockport for his day job, but he’s still true to his roots and doesn’t hide where he’s from on the app.

Drama graduate Luke first started using Tiktok – which became popular during the first UK lockdown – to cheer up his loved ones during a tough time.

Now his content – including his popular ‘Matthew’s mum’ character – has been picked up by sites such as Lad Bible and 9GAG.

Luke said: “When lockdown hit

I was really bored. I obviously couldn’t see my family or friends, and a lot of them were feeling really down due to the pandemic.

“I thought that I might be able to use Tiktok to do something to try to make people smile and take their minds off what was going on.

“My first videos were me just lip syncing to different songs or scenes, and then I’d put them onto my Facebook for my close friends and family.

“I suddenly got quite a bit of attention from one of them and a really good response, so I decided to keep doing them.

“Now there is a platform like Tiktok where you can put up a funny video and people can react to it. It’s great because it’s like I’m acting for all of these people.

“Quite often I’ll get comments on my videos that say something like, ‘oh my God, your accent – you’re from Stoke-on-trent!’

“We do get a bad rep, but I’ve always loved Stoke and I never hide where I’m from.”

In February, Luke introduced his followers to ‘Matthew’s mum’

– a character loosely based on his own mum, that he hoped everyone would relate to.

He said: “In February alone I gained 80,000 followers thanks to the Matthew’s mum videos, which took me to 100,000 followers at the end of that month. It’s crazy because I’d only hit 10,000 followers in December.”

As a result of his growing success, the former Alsager High School student is now signed with talent agency YAFTA, who support his growing platform.

Luke said: “I did my first ad for Amazon Prime, and others have been coming in which my agency help with.

“I’ve also been able to release merchandise with the ‘I don’t care Matthew’ catchphrase from Matthew’s mum.

“It is an amazing journey and if I wanted to do it seriously full-time, then that’s always something I can look into in the future.

“At the moment, I’m just enjoying the ride and trying to make people smile.”