Thomas Petrou (8 million followers) is the de facto manager, though he says he doesn’t take a cut of profits - he calls himself the dad of the house, but in addition to making sure everyone does their dishes, he makes sure that the Hype House brand can net at least $80,000 per month to stay afloat.

This concept isn’t new - YouTube, Twitch and Vine stars have experimented with these collaborative, live-in projects for years. The eponymous Hype House is one of TikTok’s longest-running content houses, where social media stars live together and film videos. On “Hype House,” these ordinary-teens-turned-icons agonize over the nature of their chance celebrity status, worrying that their fame will vanish as quickly as it appeared.

I feel like I’m not allowed to be depressed.” What do you have to be depressed about?” says Alex Warren, a TikTok star with 14.7 million followers.

Unlike the wealthy offspring of celebrities, this class of superstars shot to stardom virtually overnight, for seemingly arbitrary reasons, all dictated by a mysterious algorithm. We used to describe celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton as “famous for being famous.” But the TikTok megastars featured on the Netflix docu-soap “Hype House” are famous for being ordinary.

The hype house netflix