If a Carrington Bornstein video showed up on your For You Page, you’d be forgiven for mistaking him for just another e-boy TikToker. And yes, he’s a model who left school to pursue content creation—albeit a very successful one, with 2.5 million followers on TikTok and 789,000 and 42,700 on Instagram and YouTube, respectively. But if you actually watch his videos, you quickly see that they aren’t thirst traps from a 22-year-old Hype House wannabe. You are watching a comedy maniac, a Tim Burton–esque clown who screams instead of talks but also inspires viral fancams and draws admirers like JoJo Siwa.
Talking to GQ from inside what appears to be a mall, Carrington mostly does not break character. It’s as if I’m actually Zooming with your ex-convict boyfriend and “evil German kid FaceTiming his dad.†When I ask about creators like Siwa referencing his videos, he says, “I got fa-a-a-ns,†echoing a video from the week before. Although he does get a little bashful when I ask if any other celebrities have taken notice of his work: “I don’t want to name-drop,†he says earnestly.
Carrington wants to be a multihyphenate, and he’s confident that he’s well on his way there. He just tried stand-up for the first time. How did it go? “I crushed,†he says. “They were rolling on the floor. Knee slappers only.†He’s been recording songs, too. Has he dropped any music yet? “Nah, but it's fire.†He also debuted as a lead actor last month, in the independent film Woodbridge. But so far, his internet persona is his greatest creation, a confounding combination of rizz and cringe. His fans, he says, liken it to “a fever dream.†Here he discusses his frequent collaborations with fellow cringe TikToker Mitsy Sanderson to his recent attempts to “normalize normal Carrington.â€
Carrington Bornstein: Dude, I started back in 2021. On January 1st, I said, okay, every single day I am going to post on social media, post on TikTok, because it just seemed like so much leverage to have a social media following. It's like, I saw these kids getting free shit. They're getting brand deals. These kids are living in mansions. I'm like, I want that. I think I'm funny. There's no way these people are that much better at the internet than I am so I just got it cracking, and just wanted to use it as leverage for all other areas of my life. But I ended up just loving social media.
I was taking online classes at Scottsdale Community College. I graduated [high school] with half a year of college done for me, and that was gonna be my next year and a half. But then TikTok happened.
Well, it helped that I've been working as a model professionally for the past three years. That's been my income up until I started to monetize my platforms. But now that I have the platform, the audience, that is definitely the most accessible way for me to earn income and scale. And it's just so much fun. There's no way I'd ever move backwards to a traditional job. I just love what I do too much.
Yeah, it was some video I made with my boy Harry. It was just like "Harry," "Carry," going back and forth. It was just a stupid video, but it popped off, it got like half a million views at the time. And I was like, Oh my God, this is insane. And that kind of gave me a big push.
A lot of people say it's like a fever dream. I think I'm all right with that. It's everything that I think is funny.
Well, it's so relevant. And it's so important for creators and everybody in my industry to be aware of how to generate income from your social media and how to capitalize on certain things. And I honestly wished more people would have talked about it to me as I was growing on social media. I wish I didn't have to learn everything the hard way. So I make content for the people who are starting off and who want guidance, and I'm just basically trying to be what I wish I had when I started.
I have the funniest fan base in the world. I think everybody who follows me is probably the funniest person in their friend group. I absolutely love my audience.
Mitsy's such a goofball. Mitsy has such a bright future. I've known Mitsy for years and we just recently were like, we should probably start collaborating. We have a lot of the same audience. So it's really natural to be making videos with Mitsy. We have the same sense of humor and she's super-duper talented.
YouTube is me presenting myself in the most normal way, I would put it. Just so I can really build up who Carrington is when I'm not in a silly mood. I want to normalize normal Carrington. And also, my YouTube is basically a video diary. I'll have like 30-minute conversations with myself on there. I think I've teared up in a video.
A TikTok ban would not stop me. I'm going to the top, regardless. It doesn't matter to me. I'll find a new area.
Hell yeah, it is. That was my debut leading role in a film. It was a true indie, we shot it in 10 days in Encinitas, California. And that was an amazing experience. Shout out [director] Stephen Meier and the rest of the cast. That was my first ever in-person audition for something and got the part and all the stars aligned for that.
SNL is definitely up there. Sam Levinson universe. American Horror Story. I wanna do a lot of stuff.
Book a couple more movies for sure. Drop some music, do some stand-up, more live events. Ten million followers on TikTok, a million on YouTube. And chase the bread.
Nah, but it's fire.
I'm doing wherever my heart takes me. Whatever Carrington says goes.