A spider. A sliding snake around a collarbone. A pouty-faced lip bite. These are the component parts of Vinnie Hacker, the tattooed TikTok heartthrob whose ubiquitous internet presence has inspired a crisis of parasocial desire across the web. When he’s not lip-syncing to the camera on a 15-second TikTok, he’s gaming for hours on end in his room, streaming it all on Twitch. When he’s not doing either, his sought-after shadow still dances across the consciousness of his followers. The comments under a recent TikTok, made ahead of the TikTok ban-that-was-then-wasn’t, show his fans saying their heartfelt farewells. “goodbye vinnie, ur so so so so so fine,” reads one top comment. One reply with 62k likes pleads, “are you.. breaking up with me.”

Hacker seems unfazed by the fervent yearning of his 15 million TikTok followers as we talk over Zoom. He’s sitting coolly in his gaming chair in an apartment whose plain white interior is almost suspiciously blank. “Sometimes I look at myself in the mirror, and I’m like, ‘It’s weird that that is me and that’s me online,’” he relents, though the existential disturbance doesn’t seem too unsettling. “It’s very odd that I’m everywhere. My image is accessible to everyone. But, you know, it’s not all bad.” He smiles. “For the most part, I love it.” I ask if the “not bad” in question is the fact that everyone is hopelessly, shamelessly positive about him. “Yeah, for the most part,” he smirks.

Anyone who’s experienced even a modicum of internet notoriety knows that the experience of virality can be akin to looking at yourself through a funhouse mirror. Virality, especially on TikTok, means that within hours, tens of thousands, if not millions, of strangers could suddenly be remarking upon your life. The opinion of the masses can feel disruptive and distorting as they poke and prod at your “flaws”—your skin, your voice, your mannerisms—that is, if you have any. For Hacker, millions of new eyeballs have largely spelled devotion and desire, not nitpicking nor negativity. “I’m not afraid to see what people say about me,” he shares. “A lot of people say, ‘Don’t look at the comments.’ But half the time you can’t resist.” How could one resist, I think, that sea of love?

That’s not to say his thrust into the spotlight was not surprising. When he posted his first mega-viral TikTok, a now canonized thirst trap that has defined a certain e-boy post, he was living in Seattle and working with his dad, an electrician. “I moved to California a week after my 18th birthday. I told my parents a week before I was going, and they were like, ‘Yeah, sure, try it out,’” he recalls. “It just all flipped so fast, and now the stuff that I’m doing—sometimes I still can’t believe it.”

Things indeed moved quickly upon his move to Los Angeles. He moved in with four friends, kept streaming video games (which he had been doing since he was 13), but now that he was in the City of Dreams, and himself, a hot commodity, he had to contend with the often cynical, demanding nature of show biz. “I was so new to everything back then,” he recalls. “There were times when I’d wake up, do content, go live on TikTok, then go live on Twitch for eight hours. Then by the end of the night, I’m tired, but I have to wake up early again the next morning and do it all over again.” The spotlight and a vast audience can be exhilarating, but it can also be depleting. “You gotta hone in and take time for your mental because that’s such a big part of everything,” he tells me, uplifted.

The height of that lesson came when he joined the Hype House, the notorious mansion resided in by early TikTok’s top creators. There, Hacker and a cast of characters (including FKA Lil Huddy, Thomas Petrou, Larray, Nikita Dragun) lived, collaborated on “content,” and eventually shot a Netflix reality show about their shared life. It was like The Real World meets A Star Is Born for a generation where becoming an influencer is akin to how past generations regarded  becoming a star on the glitzy silver screen. “I probably will never do a reality show again,” he says, bluntly. “I’m very big on my personal space and there were times where people would knock on my door when I’m sleeping to get me out of bed to go shoot something.” It didn’t help that he was training for his now notorious, mega-viral boxing match against YouTuber Deji. “I was leaving my place at four in the morning to drive two hours to Melrose to go train, and then I’d come back and there’s a camera on me,” he remembers. “Most of the time I was just aggravated.”

Plus, being in a creator house wasn’t necessarily an easy fit, given the fact that he didn’t make YouTube vlogs, the favored form of most of the house’s inhabitants. “I would always say, ‘What am I supposed to do? Do a collab thirst trap?’ I feel like that’s kind of weird,’” he laughs. “‘Are we both taking our shirts off right now?’ Sometimes I would just suck it up and actually do it.” It was a wise choice. These “collab traps” were good business given the fact that the internet is hopelessly obsessed with dissecting Hacker’s sexuality and his “type.” The chatter is par for the course for any internet hot boy, but the obsession with Hacker’s preferences seems especially unhinged. A December TikTok that wildly speculates on his sexuality has 126k likes. A clip from an interview with fellow influencer, Fannita, where she asks, “What’s your type?” has 1.5 million likes. His response to her query—a simple, playful “you”— was referring to Fanitta, but clearly the millions of viewers heard something else: Me?

What does one do with all this frothing adoration? Well, there are the easy moves to feed the fervor, like posting winking lip-sync videos and taking casual selfies for Instagram. And then there’s the more potentially fulfilling choices like streaming on Twitch. “I was streaming before TikTok, before I even had an online persona,” he shares. “It’s fun having a community on Twitch. They get to see more of my personality. I feel like I have a special connection with them. They see me get to throw fits when I play, and the highs and lows of all that stuff.”

And then there are other ventures, which, like gaming, maybe scan as “nerdier,” but are, perhaps, more truthful to Hacker’s essence than his glistening content on socials. He has a forthcoming role in the Netflix Anime series Sakamoto Days. On the English dub of the show, he voices Slur, a shadowy hitman known for leaving an X after he completes his bloody work. Being a part of the Anime series, which debuted #2 in Netflix’s non-English TV chart, was a dream come true. “I've liked Anime and Manga since I was eight years old when I started watching Dragon Ball,” he shares. “Seeing the behind-the-scenes stuff really made me want to get into it. I'm not the greatest at acting live-action. So I thought to myself, ‘Why not get into voice acting?’” he recalls. “I started doing a bunch of self-tapes, and it ended up paying off.”

Sometimes, it still surprises Hacker to realize the scope of his success. He’s a fashion week favorite now, and has ever-lifting follower counts on TikTok (15 million), Instagram (4.7 million), and X (over 900k). He was even tapped to be Troye Sivan’s stud on stage during a rousing performance of his hit, “One Of Your Girls”—to which the internet responded with predictable glee. When I ask what his family makes of his life’s dramatic, spotlit turn, he seems unphased. “They’ve always believed in me. And they know that if something didn’t work out, that I would come back and figure something out,” he offers. “But it ended up working out.”

Indeed, it did. Because life is good when you’re Vinnie Hacker and you have that 1000-watt smile. Life is good when you can move with that swagger, that ease. When your shoulder-wide tattoo of a divine angel on your back is regarded as a portrait rather than a mere illustration. When your body is a blessing the world sits and studies, and your disposition is coolly kind and grateful. Maybe we live in a good, good world.

Photographed by Doug Inglish

Styled by Monty Jackson at A-Frame Agency

Written by Tobias Hess

Grooming: Anna Bernabe at Kalpana

Flaunt Film: Jacinto Astiazarán

Digital: Maxfield Hegedus

First Assistant: Todd Weaver 

Styling Assistants: Jake Mitchell and Mars Espinoza

Production Assistant: Ethan Schlesinger

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