TikToker meets with Govt about making videos
You may not recognise the face yet, but one of Invercargill’s most prominent TikToker has met with the Ministry of Education about content creation for the hugely popular video platform.
Georgia Awatea Jerry-Jones, 21, has amassed 1.6 million likes and 61,000 followers on her TikTok, geooojones since September 2021.
TikTok is a social media platform for creating, sharing and discovering short videos, where users can splice their videos into others’, or ‘‘replay’’ another video to comment on it.
Jerry-Jones and her friend were having a yarn about getting famous on the hugely popular platform, when it was suggested Jerry-Jones post a video of a haka, which subsequently ‘‘blew up’’.
Jerry-Jones, Ngāti Maniapoto, has fair skin and blue eyes, and within a couple of hours she was receiving negative comments.
‘‘I think a lot of people forget we’re a colonised country. There’s very few full-blooded Māori.
‘‘As long as you have your whakapapa you are Māori, that’s it.’’
She aims to make a career of social media influencing and wants to be on television. Just this week she had a meeting with the Ministry of Education about creating a TikTok video together.
She also recently returned from the North Island where she filmed a documentary with te reo network Hahana, detailing her journey in getting a large rib tāmoko.
Jerry-Jones’ TikTok videos show her singing alongside other users’ videos, showing off outfits or dancing with friends.
However, her most watched videos present her whakapapa, many of which have been viewed more than a million times.
One video that has been watched 1.7 million times is Jerry-Jones wearing a traditional dress and pounamu, superimposed with negative comments which wrongly suggest she is not Māori.
She ends the video by showing the camera her ‘‘Māori feet’’ and giving a thumbs up.
Jerry-Jones said she was adjusting to being recognised on the street by fans, and felt some pressure to be ‘‘on’’ all the time because her online exploits were particularly positive.
After completing high school at Invercargill’s Māori immersion school, Te Wharekura o Arowhenua, JerryJones is training to be a Kohanga teacher.
‘‘I think a lot of people forget we’re a colonised country. There’s very few full-blooded Ma¯ori . . . As long as you have your whakapapa you are Ma¯ori, that’s it.’’ Georgia Awatea Jerry-Jones