Neekolul

On her YouTube account's about page, Neekolul mentions that she is Mexican and Portuguese.[4] Her family immigrated to California from Mexico,[2] and in an interview, Neekolul mentioned that she was born and raised in San Bruno, California. She currently lives in Dallas, Texas.[5][6] In addition to being a full-time streamer, Neekolul also attends college part-time.[5] She formerly studied business and marketing in college.[7]

Neekolul is primarily a Twitch streamer and partner, having created her "neeko" Twitch account in October 2017.[8] As she is bilingual, Neekolul streams in both English and Spanish.[5] According to social media analytics firm Social Blade, her account has received over 278,000 followers and over 3.84 million views, as of November 4, 2020.[9] She decided to become a Twitch streamer due to it fitting in with her college schedule; as opposed to making content on the YouTube platform, Neekolul did not have to worry about editing her content on Twitch.[7] She streamed Call of Duty early in her career, but eventually switched over to streaming Fortnite.[7]

On March 2, 2020, Neekolul went viral online after she posted a TikTok video lip syncing and dancing to the Senzawa song "Oki Doki Boomer" while wearing a Bernie 2020 shirt.[10][1] The caption of the video read "Like to trigger the BOOMERS #bernie2020."[11] The video and its caption were referencing the OK boomer Internet meme that was popularized by Gen Z individuals, and used to criticize the Baby boomer generation.[10] It received over 6 million views in 4 days on the TikTok platform,[10] before being removed due to a copyright takedown, although the song's artist stated she was not responsible for the copyright strike.[8] On Twitter, the video has received over 30 million views.[12][13] The video was met with mixed reactions, with users divided over whether the video was cute and charming, or "cringeworthy".[11][14] However many viewed her as a Twitch sex symbol after this moment.[11][14]YouTube personality PewDiePie covered Neekolul's video in one of his own videos.[5] Kotaku commented that "the video is mesmerizing in a way that makes you feel a small amount of secondhand embarrassment. In it, Neekolul performs a hyper-feminine and cutesy series of dance movements, with the results bordering on cloying. It's a subtle balancing act between irony and sincerity that TikTok's most popular video makers have mastered."[2] In April, The Daily Dot ranked "'Oki Doki Boomer' TikTok memes" at 12th on their list of "the best memes of 2020".[15]

It has since been noted by various media publications that Neekolul is a supporter of Bernie Sanders and his 2020 U.S. presidential campaign.[16][17] The official TikTok account for Sanders' campaign also commented on the video, and Neekolul stated that the campaign's head of social media reached out to her to collaborate.[5] Uploaded a day prior to the Democratic Party presidential primaries on Super Tuesday, many online users claimed that Neekolul's video had an adverse effect on Sanders' performance in primary voting.[8][10][14] Neekolul stated, however, "I don't think I'm a huge driver of votes or anything, but I think the content creators and Internet culture as a whole can bring awareness to things like this."[5] She also conveyed that the video had more of an effect on building her online brand than turning her into a Sanders campaigner.[13]

After her viral TikTok video, many online users were noted to post messages online describing their physical attraction to her.[16][18] This garnered Neekolul the nickname, "Queen of Simps",[16] in reference to the slang term simp used to denigrate a man who is seen as giving excessive attention and deference to a woman online.[18][19] After revealing she has a boyfriend, she lost over 65,000 Twitter followers within 48 hours.[18] She has since stated she has said this to be entertaining to her viewers; Kotaku wrote that "like many of her fans, she's constantly dancing on the impossibly blurry line between irony and sincerity."[2]

She has since continued to upload content online. Her Twitter account was briefly suspended as a result of her content being tagged by false copyright claims.[7] One of her subsequent TikTok videos featured her dancing along to the song "Mia Khalifa", which drew several comparisons to Belle Delphine's similar 2019 video.[20] Her streaming content has also drawn her comparisons to Pokimane.[2] In April, Kotaku commented on her streams, stating that "even as she's blown up, in her streams she continues to behave in a way that feels accessible and inviting, verging on bubbly. That is not to say, however, that she doesn't know what she's doing."[2] The outlet added that she began to increasingly be known as a personality, rather than as "just as a meme."[2] Later in the month, she signed with Night Media, a content management company.[7] After signing with Night Media, Tubefilter reported that she began planning to branch out on YouTube and had a product line in development.[7] In July 2020, she joined the roster of American lifestyle brand and esports organization 100 Thieves as a content creator.[21][22]

Nathan Grayson of Kotaku wrote on Neekolul, stating that "the cutesiness of Neekolul's recent videos and her relative proximity to so-called "egirls" like Delphine has given rise to accusations that the fans who find her attractive are people who want women to behave in ways that are child-like, naive, or foolish."[2] Gita Jackson of Vice similarly wrote on Neekolul's appeal, stating that "like so many objects of male attention before her, her mere presence as a human being will either cause you to simp or to shun. But she's just followed a formula that's been thrust upon young, attractive women since men have been able to gawk at them."[1] Jackson added that, "Some of [Neekolul's] critics say that by wearing a cosplay school uniform, dancing, and talking like a sexy baby, she is reinforcing negative stereotypes about women and encouraging men attracted to women to indulge in a fetish for seeing them infantilized."[1]