Welcome to Millionaires, where we profile creators who have recently crossed the one million follower mark on platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Twitch. There are creators crossing this threshold every week, and each of them has a story to tell about their success. Read previous installments here.
Move over, Elijah Wood. OuttPig is the official king of wig.
OuttPig (aka Cameron Perez) is 24, based out of Colorado, and wanted to go to acting school. So, naturally, when it came time for college, he started a degree in criminology administration. But he knew his heart wasn’t really in school. Not only was there the whole acting thing, which he knew was a passion, but he’d also grown up watching YouTubers like Emma Chamberlain. He didn’t know if he “specifically wanted to be a content creator,” he says, but “that whole era of everyone coming together, I thought that’d be really fun making content.”
Subscribe for daily Tubefilter Top Stories
“It wasn’t really about the money or the fame, it was just putting out content that people like and message you about saying how they love your videos,” he adds. “I do like attention, don’t get me wrong, but just doing something you love and then getting paid for it and then people also loving what you do and people seeing what you do.”
So, when the pandemic hit and TikTok began its rise, he downloaded it and started talking to the camera, just like Chamberlain and the other creators he loved to watch. Those did okay–but then he had the idea to, for one video, film a quick skit where he was wearing a wig.
That did it: Not only did those videos take off as clear audience favorites, bringing in millions or even tens of millions of views, but they were also OuttPig’s favorites, since they felt like theater. When he started a series with his character Abby, who’s identifiable by the long, luxurious dark hair she frequently flips, he uploaded more than 20 videos, and every single one of them got seven- or eight-figure view counts. He started series with other characters, too, and at one point had more than 15 wigs, each of which was used for a different character.
With consistent view counts coming in, OuttPig made the leap, quitting his day job and dropping out of college, “which is influencer trademark,” he jokes.
Now, just a couple years later, he’s at almost 4 million followers on TikTok, and plans to spend 2024 expanding into YouTube, where he’s eyeballing making wigless mukbangs and vlog-style content. But don’t worry–over on TikTok, the wigs will still be on.
Check out our chat with him below.
@outtpig Part 3 to the series #POV #comedy #relatable #family ♬ original sound – OuttPig
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Tubefilter: Hey there! Really excited to chat. I know that you’ve grown on TikTok quite a bit. You’re at almost 4 million followers. That’s huge.
OuttPig: Thank you. It’s been crazy.
Tubefilter: I’d like to start with, I’m pretty familiar with you and with your videos, but imagine that somebody’s reading this and they’ve never seen any of your stuff, they don’t know anything about you. Give me some background about you and where you’re from, and what led you to social media.
OuttPig: I’m originally from Colorado, but when my parents split up, I moved to Arizona. I’ve pretty much been raised in Arizona my whole life. I graduated high school in 2018 and then I went off to college. I went to a two-year college first because I love to save money.
Tubefilter: Hell yeah.
OuttPig: Then I went to a four-year college at the University of Arizona. That’s right when I started blowing up on TikTok.
Tubefilter: What were you in college for?
OuttPig: I was in college for criminology administration.
Tubefilter: Oh, interesting.
OuttPig: I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with that. I really wanted to get into acting, which is what I wanted to major in, like theater.
Tubefilter: Criminology…?
OuttPig: Yes. That’s the second best, I guess. [laughs] Then that’s when my videos started blowing up on TikTok, because I was posting random videos just like ranting about guys and my experiences. At the time I was working at the Apple Store, so when my videos started blowing up, I actually quit my job and dropped out of college, which is influencer trademark, I guess.
Tubefilter: So you wanted to be an actor, you ended up in school for criminology. What drew you to the internet in the first place? Was it that you wanted to have a place to put that acting to work?
OuttPig: Yes. That was the main reason. I have always been in theater classes. Even before I started blowing up and I got my shtick of wearing wigs and stuff, it was mainly I was posting like, I guess “regular” videos, just me talking to the camera, but the ones I was most excited for were the ones I was acting in with wigs, just reenacting scenarios that I’ve been in or creating characters off the top of my head.
I don’t know if I specifically wanted to be a content creator. I loved watching Emma Chamberlain, like the whole group on YouTube, Shane Dawson, Jeffree Star, James Charles.
Tubefilter: Oh, OG YouTube.
OuttPig: Yes. I know half of them are canceled now, but that whole era of everyone coming together, I thought that’d be really fun making content. It wasn’t really about the money or the fame, it was just putting out content that people like and message you about saying how they love your videos. I do like attention, don’t get me wrong, but just doing something you love and then getting paid for it and then people also loving what you do and people seeing what you do.
Tubefilter: You started posting on TikTok. Do you know when that was, what year?
OuttPig: When I first started, I would say maybe October of 2020.
Tubefilter: How long did it take you to reach an audience?
OuttPig: It was about July, so maybe a little less than a year.
Tubefilter: What was the first video you had that really blew up for you?
OuttPig: I feel like it depends on what you consider blowing up, but my first video that did really good, which kickstarted everything, was my Abby oil change video. I had a whole Abby series. I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but that was the first series that I think I posted maybe like 20-something videos of, and every video got millions of views, and people loved it.
Tubefilter: Interesting. Are series a major traffic driver for you? I know that for me, when I come across a series I haven’t encountered before, it’s a lot more difficult on TikTok to go back and watch previous parts than it is on YouTube, so I’m curious about your experience with them as a creator.
OuttPig: Honestly, my best videos are my series. Most of the time I do post just random stuff that I’ve never done before. You could attribute my characters to other characters, but most of them are like part 30-something. When I first started posting series, I would put like “Part 1,” “Part 2,” and then all up until Part 25. I realized that once it got to a certain part, the videos wouldn’t do as good. What I like to do with my videos is, you don’t have to have context to enjoy the video. It’s not like a storyline where if you miss last video, you’re not going to understand what’s going on in this video.
I stopped doing the parts because, I’m bad at this, but there’s a little option on TikTok where you could make a series and they can click on it and it’s like a whole list of all the videos in that series. I should do that more often, but I forget. I stopped doing the part. If you enjoy the video and you want the same character, then you can go through it, but there’s no storyline. It’s just that character in different situations.
I was also going to bring up ReesaTeesa, like a story type thing is good if you’re getting enough press and enough people are enjoying it, you will sit there and watch the 50 parts. If it’s something not as hyped up and it’s something that just comes up on your For You page and you see something that’s like Part 50, most likely no one’s going to want to watch all of it unless everyone is telling you to watch it because it’s so good.
Tubefilter: To go back a little, you quit your job and dropped out of college, which are both very intimidating decisions. Then you go full-time in content. Once you went full-time, how did things change for you? Did you throw yourself at it? What was your schedule like?
OuttPig: My whole life changed immediately because I’d just started college. I just started making more at my job at Apple. I finally met my boyfriend in person because we were long-distance for a few months and then he flew out here to see me. We decided to live together. I quit my job. I moved out of my mom’s house for the first time on my own. I started making content, dropped out of college. We also got a cat.
Tubefilter: Cat, very important.
OuttPig: Very important. Literally, my life completely changed within the course of, I think, a month.
Tubefilter: Is your boyfriend involved in your content at all? Helping you create it?
OuttPig: Yes. He films all my videos. Every single one is his camera work. My cinematographer. And he also helps me with my jokes and my ideas, too.
Tubefilter: Does he have any background or interest in film? His camera work is great.
OuttPig: Oh, he’d appreciate to hear that. He doesn’t have any, no, he doesn’t have any background with cinematography. I don’t know if he has any aspirations to do that, but I know one day if he needs to get a new job, he probably will put that on his resume.
Tubefilter: Yes, he should. It must be great for you to have that bounce-off too, creatively.
OuttPig: Yes, it’s really fun.
Tubefilter: I was going to ask about your production process from beginning to end. You said you script, how long does scripting take? How long does the average video take you? What steps do you go through to make one?
OuttPig: My videos, honestly, it’s really not a big production or anything. My schedule isn’t that tidy. It’s not that neat. There’s not a strict schedule for my content. I usually post every other day or every other-other day. I’ve been pretty bad at it lately. I usually wake up knowing that I should post that day. Then I think of an idea, which takes me about maybe 10, 20 minutes filming–at most, probably takes 30 minutes.
I don’t write scripts for my videos I tried writing scripts before, at the very start of my TikTok journey, but I feel like I get choked up and it seems more scripted if I write something out first. Most of it is acapella, or I don’t know what’s the word.
Tubefilter: Improv?
OuttPig: Improv.
Tubefilter: Improv acapella.
OuttPig: Yes, acapella improv. [laughs]
Tubefilter: Clearly your videos are doing really well on TikTok. I scrolled through your page earlier and I think virtually all of them have over a million views, if not multiple millions. I know that you have a YouTube channel as well, but it hasn’t grown as much. I was curious if you’ve thought about moving things over to Shorts, if you’ve had experience with moving things over to Shorts.
OuttPig: Yes, I’ve posted on Shorts. They just don’t really do that well. Plus, I’m really hard on myself because if I see that my videos don’t do good, or if I feel like I’m starting over, it’s really hard for me to be motivated, which isn’t a good way to look at things. At a certain point on TikTok, my videos were doing nothing, and no one was seeing them. I did just upload a video with Nicholas Philmon, who is another TikToker that I’m friends with. He actually just recently moved here. He also gets crazy engagement and he’s really funny.
I am going to buy a camera and post videos on YouTube. I do feel like if I do move to YouTube, I’m going to ditch the wigs and I’m just going to post like mukbangs and show more of my true self instead of creating characters. Maybe here and there, I could bring out the wig again.
Tubefilter: I find that almost everybody I speak to who blew up on TikTok struggles immensely to get into YouTube Shorts. Something about the audience preferences or the algorithm, it just does not work. It’s the same for people on YouTube, they struggle to get into TikTok. This is a consistent problem across the board.
OuttPig: I also think with YouTube Shorts, I don’t know if this is actually true, but I feel like a huge demographic, if not 80% of the demographic of people who watch YouTube Shorts, are kids. I have a few friends who blew up on TikTok and have a following on there and moved to YouTube Shorts that make content for kids. Their videos do really well on there. I feel like maybe parents trust YouTube more than they do TikTok. Not sure why, but I think parents, when they want to put their kid in front of an iPad and leave them alone for a little bit, it’s always YouTube. I think if you make kid content, it’ll do really good on YouTube Shorts.
Tubefilter: Interesting.
OuttPig: Not trying to give an excuse on why my videos do bad on there.
Tubefilter: No, no, I get it. I’m also really curious about the pattern. I wish we could get more data.
OuttPig: Yes. It also could just be a thing where they have some sort of machine or mechanism that can verify if a video is made on YouTube or from your camera roll rather than like posted elsewhere.
Tubefilter: Yes. That’s also something we’re looking into.
OuttPig: I need to put my foot down and try to venture out. I’ve been really venturing out in Snapchat. I got verified the other day. I’ve been trying to show my true self in my day-to-day life on there and try to get my followers over there to see if they’d enjoy seeing me. This is probably what I’m going to use to gauge whether or not people are going to want to watch me on YouTube, is if people want to see what my stories are like on Snapchat.
Tubefilter: What kind of stuff do you post on Snapchat? Is it more like vlogging content?
OuttPig: Yes. Vlogging. I post selfies. If I do makeup on live on TikTok, I’ll take a picture on my Snapchat and be like, “I’m live!” This is the makeup look I just did yesterday, I was shopping at the mall for my boyfriend’s birthday gift because his birthday’s in a few days. I was posting me at the mall and videos of my dog. I took her to the vet this morning. I was taking pictures of her at the vet. Things like that.
Snapchat seems dated, but there’s still a lot of people on there, which is news to me because I thought people didn’t really use Snapchat anymore. But I guess a lot of people still do.
Tubefilter: A lot of people seem to use it for closer engagement with fans and less polished day-to-day content, which seems like what you’re doing too. You said you’re using it to gauge whether people will watch you on other platforms.
OuttPig: That’s the fun part, people will swipe up and say something and then I’ll respond to them. It’s just another place to be able to talk with people that support you.
Tubefilter: Any cool opportunities you’ve gotten because of TikTok?
OuttPig: Working with brands is always fun. I was able to go to Neon Carnival, which is an afterparty for Coachella. There were so many celebrities there, which was crazy. A few nice, a few mean people there. Being able to meet really cool people there, plus just being able to, like, I don’t know. It felt like I made it when I went there. I think this was two years ago. That was a really cool opportunity.
Also getting paid to do something like that is mind-boggling. Getting paid to go to a party is crazy.
Tubefilter: What are the other brand partnerships you’ve had?
OuttPig: I’m currently working with 7-Eleven. I’ve worked with Hulu. I’ve worked with Peacock. I’ve worked with HelloFresh. I’ve worked with Vita Coco coconut water. Air Up water bottles. I’m trying to think of maybe my favorite. 7-Eleven is probably the most giving. They’re really nice people. Their team is amazing. They send me so much PR. They sent me a Halloween costume. They’re so cool.
Tubefilter: Do you find that the majority of your income comes from brand deals rather than TikTok’s creator monetization?
OuttPig: Yes. Most of the money does come from brand deals. TikTok has gotten better at paying its creators if you make longer-form content, which is a good thing because you’re getting paid more for making longer videos. I had to switch up pretty much my entire way of filming because I made 30- to 40-second videos, and now I make a minute to a minute-10 videos, just so it qualifies.
It’s a good chunk, because with brand deals, you never know when you’re going to get them. There’s off months and there’s on months, and usually if you’re doing bad with brand deals, then everyone’s doing bad with brand deals, because there’s seasons for campaigns, so there’s a lot of dry months.
TikTok comes in and pays its creators every month. It’s something you can hold on to if you need bills paid and stuff like that, which you couldn’t really count on before the new beta program. It’s really helpful, but yes, most of the money does come from brands.
Tubefilter: You said TikTok is getting better. I know they’re only paying out on videos longer than a minute. That was an adjustment for you.
OuttPig: Yes, it was an adjustment for me. It wasn’t a huge one, especially because a lot of the times when I would film videos, my boyfriend would be like, “Hurry up, you’re going past a certain amount.” A little off topic, but with videos, the longer the video is, the worse your watch time is going to be with your followers. The better the watch time, the more your video gets pushed, the more likes, the more engagement. It also screws with your engagement a little bit if every video you post is longer-form content.
It was a little bit more of an adjustment, especially in the early stages where my videos wouldn’t perform as well because people were used to watching 30 seconds, and everyone these days has ADHD and it’s hard to watch something for too long. That was an adjustment for me. Also just having to sneak in more jokes because you don’t want a boring video where it just seems like it’s dragging on without a punchline every 10 seconds.
It also just sucks because there’s a lot of creators who just…talk. I’ve noticed a lot of, like, even my mutuals, their normal content’s, like, “Okay, I’m at the mall right now and I’m trying to get these shoes, but tell me why this girl came up to me and she wanted to fight or something.” You can just tell when they’re trying, they’re adding more words into it to make it longer. It just seems not as genuine, but at the same time, these people need to pay their bills, so I understand.
It also just creates, like, if you go on most people’s accounts, the video will be one minute and one second long because they’re trying to get that extra little piece in there to make sure their videos qualify.
Tubefilter: I do see why, yeah. We talked a little bit about how you plan to take off the wigs for YouTube Shorts, but hopefully not on TikTok.
OuttPig: Not on TikTok.
Tubefilter: As a comedic actor, it’s been such a core part of your presence on TikTok. I am curious about your vast collection of wigs. How many wigs do you have?
OuttPig: I used to have a lot. I used to have 15 upwards, close to 20, at my last apartment, and then our ceiling collapsed and got a whole bunch of fiberglass all over them. Now I have maybe 10. A lot of them were plastic synthetic wigs, but now I’ve switched over to investing in more human hair wigs that’ll last longer and look better for the videos.
Tubefilter: I’m just curious, what’s the price difference between synthetic and human hair?
OuttPig: Honestly, you can get some pretty good wigs that aren’t too expensive. Synthetic wigs usually, a good synthetic wig is probably $30, $40. Then I guess the lower end of the nicer wigs, I usually pay $190, which is still expensive to drop $200 on a wig. There’s definitely wigs that are $1,000 if you want a 360 wig or something, but you can get some really nice human hair wigs. Those are also just for the ones that are 40 inches long because all my wigs are usually long. I like long wigs, but you can get short bobs with human hair wigs, probably for $80, $90.
Tubefilter: We talked a little bit about your filming process earlier, but I’m curious, do you set out to film a specific amount of videos per day, or to publish a specific amount of videos per day? How does your process work?
OuttPig: I don’t like to film videos unless I have an idea. Most of my videos come from a day before, and I’m like, oh my god, this would be so funny, and then the next day I film it. I usually film right before I post, just so it’s more fresh. Plus, I don’t know, I have the superstition that if something sits in your drafts for too long, it won’t do that good on TikTok.
I usually try to put my videos out every other day or every other other day, just so I’m not clogging my feed up too much. I feel like if people see your face too often, they can get tired of you if they always are seeing your content. I know that’s how I feel. Even if I love someone a lot, too much is not good. I want people wanting more from me rather than them always being, I guess, “full” of my videos. I don’t know, keep them wanting more.
Tubefilter: Keep them hungry! What’s been your favorite part of this whole being on TikTok experience?
OuttPig: I guess just doing what I love and people loving it, being able to support myself and love what I’m doing, getting paid to have fun. I guess that’s my favorite part of this. It’s also really helpful just because I never thought with the content that I do, that I would get really sincere messages of people saying like, “I love your wigs, I’m going through chemo right now. I have cancer.”
Just being able to give links and tell people where to go and being able to talk to people and saying that I’ve helped them. I’ve had conversations with people that relate, like my parent videos, my narcissistic parent videos, people comment or message me and say, “I went through this with my mom, and it really helps to see that I’m not alone.” Also, just seeing the comments of people coming together and sharing their stories in the comments is just crazy.
Tubefilter: I’d imagine your content is very cathartic for a lot of people.
OuttPig: Yes. Especially because for me, it just seems like trying to entertain people, but it goes beyond that because everyone shares experiences in their lives and they can relate to things.
Tubefilter: Any plans or goals you’re looking forward to over the next year or so, things you want people to know?
OuttPig: I really do want to get a house. I want to move somewhere where I could film videos outside. I live in an apartment right now, so it’s a little bit harder to film outdoor videos, but I love filming outdoors. I’ve had a few videos on my account where I filmed in the woods, or I’ve filmed in my boyfriend’s dad’s private bar. I do want to start posting on YouTube, mainly normal YouTube videos, not like Shorts. I want to start doing YouTube almost as seriously as I do TikTok. That’s one of my goals.
I want to grow a following on there. I want to do stuff that doesn’t contain wigs. I’ve always wanted to be a mukbanger for some reason. I think that’d be so fun. Maybe it’s because I’m fat or something, I don’t know. I think that’d be super fun just being able to talk to a camera and eat. Also, just doing challenges and doing collabs and stuff would be so fun. That’s one of my biggest goals.
Tubefilter: Perfect. Anything else you want people to know about you, about your content, anything else we didn’t cover?
OuttPig: I guess that being an influencer or being a content creator is a really fun job. I see a lot of content creators that are complaining about this job, so I just want to say that it’s one of the most fun and rewarding experiences, if you do become a content creator, influencer, that you’ll ever have. You will never experience it if you don’t try. Posting videos every single day will only get you closer to that if you ever want to be a content creator.
OuttPig is repped by Viral Nation.
