Editor’s Note: The Houston Press was notified today that Eli Rallo’s appearance at The Last Concert Café has been canceled. You can still read her book.
The life of an influencer can be fascinating to average social median, and popular TikToker Eli Rallo is no exception. Except the content creator and debut author out-and-out refuses to be categorized without a fight.
Rallo defends her multi-hyphenate status with a powerful observation of a certain double standard. “I always said when I was a young girl, I think a lot of people would have said: ‘I have too many interests.’ Too many things. And I get it. But I also think that is a super common thing we tell little girls who have lots of interests, just because we think they’re going to have less of a shot or we, societally, pigeonhole them in. But when men or young boys have lots of interests, its like ‘Oh my god, my son likes theater and math and sports and science – he’s so dynamic!’ But when girls do it, its: ‘You are a hot mess. You are a disaster. You are all over the place. You’re too much. You need to focus!’”
“I felt like that was the thing I was always being told as a kid and I’m so glad I didn’t let all of that noise deter me from being interested in so many things, whether that was creative writing, playwriting, film, theater, all of it. In this way, it is unique to be straddling two worlds of being a content creator and an author at the same time. I wanted my book tour to reflect that. I wanted it to reflect who I am and also build community, make friends and come together. I just thought: what better way than to do a fun live show.”
A build it she has, as Rallo has embarked on the I Didn’t Know I Needed This: The Live Show tour to promote her first tome of the same name. After successful stops in across New England and the West Coast, Rallo completes her book tour in Houston on March 2 at the Last Concert Café.
While TikTok might be where she is known best these days, Rallo paints the picture of finding her happy place online as a torrid love affair with many varied forms of creative expression. “So I always loved playing on the internet,” she says. “I was a very creative kids doing theater and writing and I always knew that I wanted to be an author.
“Over the pandemic, I was just messing around on TikTok and as things do, one thing led to the next. Very quickly I was thrust into this TikTok world and felt very at home creating on TikTok. It was a wonderful serendipitous happenstance but then started to really commit to it and kind of take it more seriously. I was in grad school at Columbia studying journalism, and then slowly, but surely, I grew my following and then suddenly I connected to my literary agents and they had read my writing. It was just a crazy thing, and we decided that we were gonna do a book and that’s what sort of how it happened.”
While she’s been nicknamed the ‘Carrie Bradshaw of TikTok’ due to her incisive observations from a New York perspective, she has cultivated different personas across her different social media platforms. “I do view my TikTok and Instagram as separate entities,” she explains. “I definitely have separate followings, which is interesting. Some of my TikTok followers aren’t on my Instagram, obviously and numerically, vice versa. Sometimes I forget, oh yeah, I can post videos on Instagram. I am always writing on there, or giving advice. Similarly for TikTok, some of the things that are working on there could also work over here. It’s been an interesting juggling act. I’m lucky that I like to have a lot to do.”
While TikTok is the new kid on the block for many people over a certain age, Rallo is open in saying that platform offers one of the most level playing fields for those wishing to break in to finding new audiences. “A lot of people think of the social media influencer as a very curated house,” Rallo states. “Maybe like, super buttoned up and a lot of them in the early Instagram days were like, religious, and that’s how they got a following.
“And I’m not saying there is anything wrong with that. They were super aesthetic with filters and editing and everything was perfect. A lot of people who aren’t familiar might just think that TikTok is a continuation. But the beautiful thing about TikTok is the algorithm, which allows anyone the chance at gaining a following. Instagram is very different. Its very visual and it may be shifting but it’s not the same. Most native creators are native to TikTok or YouTube. Instagram kind of happens after.”
“TikTok is this wonderful place, my grandparents scroll on TikTok and the algorithm will immediately mold to your interests depending on what you are watching. You’ll see such diversity in stories and people and paths of life and hobbies and things to learn about. That’s definitely my favorite part about TikTok. There are so many different people trying so many different things and putting themselves out there. There really is something for everyone. I mean, it’s popular for a reason.”
With a full workload online, Rallo managed to craft her first book under a quick turnaround and even helped push her publishers into new marketing directions. “I am really lucky that my editors over at Harper Collins and my team there was super open to kind of like, my way of doing things. I think that a lot of publishing houses or editors might not have been so like, ‘OK, so that’s what you want to do, we’ve never had anyone do that before as far as like marketing goes or whatever, but let’s talk about it. Let’s really talk about it.’ That was so special to have that, I was so lucky to have people see this is modern, this is different, so why not try? That was just amazing. So I think that having structure was quite different because I am used to just answering to myself, it was also a welcome and refreshing thing to have. They were so open to being on the same page.”
While it might seem from the outside that a master’s degree in journalism might transfer to this new written project – it would seem the contrasts between the mediums are clearer. “As I’m sure you know,” she says. “Something interesting about journalism is how tight it is. This is what we’re gonna do, this is what the word count is. It is those guidelines you have to live in the middle of. Obviously wiring a book is not like that, but it was very nice to have that background when it comes to like ‘kill your darlings’ and that intense structure allowed me to be, I don’t want to say less creative but more free.
“I write so long, and its nice to have that education where it really is just 500 words. I liked have six months. In some ways it didn’t feel long enough and sometimes it felt too long. In the future I might take a little bit longer, because six months was tight with everything going on with TikTok at the same time. But at the end of the day, it was also much longer than anything I had ever experienced before so I think I am looking forward to working more with longer deadlines. I do like having time to sit with it [and] to walk away from it.”
Ironically, it was the forced inside time of the pandemic that encouraged Rallo to curate an audience online in the first place. Now with quarantine in the rear-view, Rallo makes the pitch to come out of the house to see her live.
“I totally get it, because I am quite introverted,” she says. “The show is about an hour and 20 minutes long, so if you don’t want to stay for the meet and greet, and you don’t want to get there early, which I recommend doing both. But let’s just say, you didn’t want to do either – you’re only out of the house an hour and 20 minutes.
“I would say secondarily, my favorite thing about socializing is not obviously the before – like a lot of people will say they like getting ready before I go somewhere. I don’t! That’s all anticipation. I like being there and having that realization, that oh, I’m glad I came. I did have people come up to me on the New York show and say they were considering not coming, or like they don’t know about coming by themselves, blah blah blah. And they came, and they were so grateful. So I think that that is something I am excited about. I’m like, that’s all you need to know, I was getting that testimonial live and in person.”
Ticket buyers online will have the chance to order the accompanying book ahead of time, and for Rallo, having a relationship to the new material is a plus – but not a requirement.
“I think I would say that the people who are going to have the best time are either in the middle of the book, or finishing it. That’s just because if you really like the book, you are gonna be really connected to like, the whole show. But the book isn’t really the center of the show as much as the themes of the book are the center of the show. It will just be a nice additional thing if you’ve read it already. But I don’t think you need to have read the book to come, it’s going to be so much fun either way.”
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
