Welcome to Creators on the Rise, where we find and profile breakout creators who are in the midst of extraordinary growth. You can check out previous installments here.
Janine DeMichele-Baggett had big Broadway dreams. And it seemed like the universe was falling into place: she’d done an internship at the Atlanta Shakespeare Tavern, was doing a lot of community theater, was on some children’s shows, and suddenly, when her husband needed to relocate for work, had the chance to move to New York City, Broadway’s big hub.
So they took the leap and moved.
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Right before COVID hit.
“Everything just came crashing down,” DeMichele-Baggett tells Tubefilter. She’d been smitten with performing since she was a kid, and had built her whole career up for the stage. Now the theaters were shuttered. No shows were casting.
Luckily, she’s “chronically online,” she says, and had picked up a job working in marketing and social media to help pay the bills when her car was stolen during a performance. She knew she enjoyed social media before the job–she had a YouTube channel way back in 2007. was on Vine, and kept her eye on up-and-coming platforms–but in that role, she learned she was good at it, too.
All that is to say when TikTok began rising in popularity, DeMichele-Baggett was ready to roll.
“I would say TikTok really changed the trajectory of my life, which sounds dramatic to say, but it was really through that app that I discovered a love for creating short-form content and video content,” she says. “I think I always was looking for that as an outlet. The acting world is very harsh. It’s a lot of rejection, and it’s a lot of waiting around on people to cast you. What I found with content creation was, ‘Hey, this is an avenue to cast myself.'”
With unlimited possibility for roles, which did she choose to play? Her account named, Retro Avocado, might give you a clue. As an actor, she’d done a lot of work on period pieces, and was fascinated by vintage costumes and makeup styles. On TikTok, she figured she’d put that knowledge to work, and started a long-running video series where she captured a look, outfit, and song emblematic of that year. The series began in 2019, and stretched all the way back to the ’60s.
“People really, I think, gravitated toward that,” she says. “The ’90s stuff, people really, really gravitated. […] I really think there’s something about the ’90s, especially for my generation, that just evokes so much comfort. I think that we’re all seeking that.”
Now, DeMichele-Baggett balances content creation with a day job in marketing, and though the possibility of going full-time on content is “scary,” she says, it’s something she’s aiming for. The more her audience grows–she’s up to nearly 280,000 followers on TikTok, has over 200,000 on Instagram, and just got picked up by Viral Nation–the more it’s apparent that getting creative about the retro past is helping build her future.
Check out our chat with her below.
@retro.avocado Moms in the 90s and honestly me today as well minus the giant rooster 😂 #90s #90smom #nineties #90saesthetic #90sthrowback #90skid ♬ оригинальный звук – Anastasia G.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Tubefilter: Hello, very nice to meet you! To give you a little intro about Tubefilter and Creators on the Rise, I interview creators who are growing their audiences and their content and their businesses in interesting ways. I checked out your website and I know that you do this combo of being a marketing professional and making content, so I’m really interested to get to talk to you.
Retro Avocado: I’m happy to chat. It’s always fun to talk to other people who understand what I’m doing because it’s like most of the time, people I run into, they have no concept of what goes into everything. Always happy to have a chat about it.
Tubefilter: Fantastic. For people reading this who aren’t familiar with you, give me a little bit about your background, where you’re from, how you ended up in marketing originally.
Retro Avocado: Yes. My background, I grew up in a really tiny town in Georgia called Grovetown, Georgia. My high school was like a one red-light town. It was a very rural situation. I quickly realized this is not my vibe, I do not mesh with this at all.
I’d always been performing. I’ve been doing plays ever since I was a small child. Ended up doing theater in high school. Was really invested in that and decided to pursue theater in college as well, and acting. I have background in all of that. After college, I did the starving artist thing, waiting tables, all of that, and auditioning, and I did some film. I ended up really developing a great community and worked with professional theaters. I ended up getting an agent. I did some film and TV, not a ton. I mainly did theater. I did a lot of classical theater as well, Shakespeare, which is maybe surprising. I learned how to sword fight, all kinds of things relating to performance. That was really what I thought. I was like, “Yes, I’m going to be an actor. That’s it. I’m going to move to New York eventually.” I didn’t really know when that was going to happen because I was living in Atlanta.
I ended up moving to Atlanta the day after I graduated college. It was like I went to college in Columbus, Georgia. Even then, I was like, “I got to get out. I got to get to a city.” I ended up living in Atlanta for eight years, and like I said, pursuing acting in theater. It was at that point I actually–
This is actually a funny story. I don’t know if it’s funny, but I was doing a show. I was in the middle of a performance, and I come out after the show and my car is stolen. This is at a theater. My car got stolen. I was working a catering job, and I was doing an internship at the Atlanta Shakespeare Tavern, which is a popular Shakespeare theater in Atlanta. I was freaking out. I’m like, “What am I going to do? I’m broke. I’m in this theater internship, which doesn’t pay a lot, and doing catering.” I’m like, “What the heck am I supposed to do?” My now husband, my boyfriend at the time, he was like, “You’re really good at social media. My boss needs some help with that.” This was in 2012. He’s like, “My boss needs some help with that. Would you be able to help him out?” Because I was always an early participant of any social media network that ever existed.
I was an early adopter–or, should I say, chronically online since the day that AOL came out. Even back then as a kid, I was always interested in computers and social media and whatever iterations that existed from the beginning of time. Anyway, he was like, “Yes, you’d be good at social media, I think.” I was like, “Yes, maybe, we’ll try it out.” Basically, that job led me to where I am today, really, it’s like a domino effect. I ended up meeting my current boss for my day job, which is my marketing job. I ended up realizing I had a knack for social media and marketing and all of that.
Of course, in the meantime, I was also performing, doing a lot of theater. I did some children’s shows and all that. It was an even blend. Then, the pandemic happened, and we ended up moving to New York right before the pandemic for my husband’s job. Yes. I was like, “Great.” I was killing it in the Atlanta theater scene. I was like, “This is my time. I’m going to go to New York.” It’s Broadway dreams, right? It was like COVID hit and everything just came crashing down, naturally.
Around that time, TikTok came out. I would say TikTok really changed the trajectory of my life, which sounds dramatic to say, but it was really through that app that I discovered a love for creating short-form content and video content. I’ve always been drawn to video, too. Even in high school, when we had to do group projects, like video projects, my little digital Kodak camera, I was obsessed with that. I took it so seriously, and I loved that. There was not a lot of opportunities back then. I had a YouTube channel in 2007, and I put up little skits and things. Nothing really came of it. I was on Vine. It didn’t really lead to anything.
I think I always was looking for that as an outlet. The acting world is very harsh. It’s a lot of rejection, and it’s a lot of waiting around on people to cast you. What I found with content creation was, “Hey, this is an avenue to cast myself.” Not only that, but I’m a very creative person. I’m a creative director. I like to conceptualize. I like to do the editing. I like to have creative control. That’s something you don’t get as an actor. You’re like the bottom of the totem pole. You say the lines on the page and that’s it for the stuff I was doing. Obviously, if you’re really famous, then you have more leeway.
To be able to create my own content and my own stuff was so liberating for me and very empowering. I really just delved really deep into that. That turned into my creative outlet, and I was having some success there. That’s what I’ve been pursuing because it’s like you go where the doors open, and it’s just interesting how it all comes full circle. I’ve done campaigns for Broadway. It’s just interesting how that works. Working with brands and creating a commercial. For me, I’m like, “Oh, and I’m getting paid more to just do this myself than I would if I was doing a nonunion commercial as an actor.” Not only is it more empowering because I’m creating and have the creative vision, it’s even more profitable than acting can be. It’s a very harsh industry. It’s been really empowering.
I feel like I just literally word-vomited so much at you.
Tubefilter: No, no, no. That was great. You said you had some success on TikTok early on. When did you know that it was going to be something you continued doing?
Retro Avocado: It’s interesting. I started around 2019, actually, and I just had so much fun with it. I was doing this retro series. This series, when this took off, I really started feeling like, “Oh, this really could be something there.” Since I have an acting background, I’m also really into costumes and hair and makeup. Every time I was doing a show, if I did a period piece, I’d be obsessive about the authenticity of the makeup I’m doing and the hair and how that fits in, and doing all this research. I always loved that aspect of it as well, and creating a vision aesthetically.
So I created this series. I was like, “I’m going to go back in time every year and just see how far I can go.” Every video was a year and had a specific look and it had a specific song. It was like if TikTok existed in this year, because in that era, it was a lot of just the lip-sync videos, and it was a little more simplistic. TikTok in that era was different, a lot of the lip-syncing and aesthetics. I would go back in time, and I think I started in 2016, and then I went 2016, ’15, all the way to the ’60s, and every single video had a different look completely, just using wigs and costumes and doing that and creating the vibe for each year and researching what was the top song that year and things like that, that was really fun for me.
People really, I think, gravitated toward that. The ’90s stuff, people really, really gravitated. I think around this era, you think about what was going on in the world. Millennials and everyone else were troubled, and there’s a lot of distressing things happening. I really think there’s something about the ’90s, especially for my generation, that just evokes so much comfort. I think that we’re all seeking that. For me, too, sometimes I try to revise my past. I grew up in a very fundamentalist church, and I wasn’t allowed to actually participate in a lot of pop culture while it was happening. In a way, I get to almost relive things, if that makes sense. I find that very comforting and healing for myself as well. There’s just something about it, the memories that you evoke and trying to find the pleasant ones among the bad ones and trying to focus on that. It’s interesting.
@retro.avocado And you can’t forget the Readers Digest, potpourri, and I promise you those bath oil beads are in the bathtub too 😂 #90smom #90snostalgia #nostalgia ♬ Wide Open Spaces – The Chicks
Tubefilter: It’s an interesting approach! Most people who do nostalgia content are like, “This was my childhood and I’m sharing it with you,” but it seems like you’re using this as a healing journey.
Retro Avocado: I wouldn’t say 100% is like that. There are some things that are very accurate, like the ’90s mum’s kitchen. That’s not really pop culture. That’s what I’m trying to do, is transcending even pop culture into capturing that feeling that you had while you were living at that time beyond just, “Oh, what was the popular music?” Or, “What were we wearing?” I don’t know if that makes sense, but it’s…
Tubefilter: It’s the vibe.
Retro Avocado: It’s something about capturing the feeling and seeing certain images and the aura and combining with the music and the brown lipstick and this and that. I can capture that moment in time that I remember. It’s like a flashback, and it does that for other people, too. It’s been really interesting to see how people react to some things. Some people are like, “Oh, my mother died, and you remind me of her, and it’s comforting,” or “I didn’t have a peaceful childhood, so this is really comforting to me.” You think you’re just doing some silly stuff just to be silly, but there’s deeper things you can glean from that sometimes. I would say a year or two ago, I did a lot more where it was me as a kid or as a teen skits, which is more similar to what other nostalgia creators tend to do. I think in those scenes, I absolutely was revising and creating that healing journey for myself because I really didn’t experience some of them. I have tapped in and done a little bit of stuff revolving around the church, but it can be really triggering for me sometimes. I tend to not delve into that too, too much, but I know there are other people that also identify like me.
I found ways to get my pop culture fix, even though I was forbidden. I was always very fascinated by it. This is a very common experience in a Christian household where you’re watching MTV until your parent walks in the room and you quickly flip the station to, I don’t know, Disney channel or something. [laughs] It’s always on the down low. You can’t really be open about it, but you’re definitely finding ways to consume it. My friends would have the new Britney Spears album, which I wasn’t allowed to have because she was like spirit of Jezebel or something.
Tubefilter: [laughs]
Retro Avocado: I listened to a lot of contemporary Christian and Celine Dion. Celine Dion was okay in my household. I always loved her, although she had an album one time where it looked like she was topless. My dad was not happy about that, but he ended up letting me listen to it. It was like, “It’s weird the things people got fixated on.” My dad was very strict, so it was by the book.
Tubefilter: What is your current mix of pursuits that you have in terms of what does your daily schedule look like?
Retro Avocado: I have my full-time job, and I don’t know how much you want to publicize about this because I’ll just tell you my true feelings. Anyway, it’s not like my dream career. It’s not marketing. I feel like in my soul core, I’m a performer, I’m an entertainer, and I’m a creator. That can take a lot of different forms. I feel like I’m just the type that’s not going to be able to do just one thing. In my dream world, I would love to get back into acting and writing. Right now, I’m in sketch comedy classes, and I’ve done improv. I actually have a show next week, a sketch show. It’s been really fun because I write, sometimes, for my sketches. A lot of times, it’s improv or it’s just set to music. Sometimes I write out scripts for brand collaborations, but I’ve never sat and wrote a whole sketch comedy scene or stuff like that. It was the first time I really got a chance to do that. I’m really realizing that I’m loving it. I feel like I have a natural inclination for that because it’s a perfect blend of what I do online and what my acting background is, because it’s not a full play, but it’s not a three-second video. It’s in between.
I’d love to explore more of that and bring this to the real world because that’s the one thing I do miss about content creation, is it’s very isolating, and I work from home. I work from home, and then it’s a typical day. I’m here on my computer working from 9:00 to 5:00, and then I’m married, I got a dog, doing all your typical things. Then, I’m like, Hopefully, I can spare an hour or two to do some editing and post. This is probably something that is unusual, but I don’t film a lot. I actually maybe film once every two weeks or so.
@retro.avocado In the 90s, if it was fat free it was automatically the pinnacle of health no matter what the replacement was. Ya’ll remember the Olestra craze? People found out really quick that was NOT gonna work 😅 #90s ♬ original sound – retro🥑avocado
Tubefilter: Oh, interesting. You batch film?
Retro Avocado: Yes. I batch things, but I also, I don’t actually know of anyone else that is doing this, so I don’t know if I’m pioneering something, but I’ve created a thing where I turn myself into a meme, if that makes sense. You know those CapCut templates where people reuse these templates? A concept that I do is I create my own template like that. I will use a same clip, and if you really pay attention, you will notice it’s the same clip in a lot of videos, but I change up the background to match what I’m trying to show, and I change the music. It’ll be like a ’90s mum putting on lipstick. You’ll start to see. A lot of the kitchen ones, it’s the literal exact same clip of me, but everything around it is different. I’ve used that CapCut template process and turned it into a thing that I can use for myself. That really makes it so much easier for me to balance everything because it can be really difficult to work full-time and do this to the point where it’s gotten now and just have a life and have a social life. In New York, it’s like there’s always stuff to do, so it’s hard. I found batching, but not only batching, but reusing things, not just reposting, but reusing clips that I can just put the same clip over and no one notices.
That’s what’s actually hilarious about it. It took maybe 10 of them before someone was like, “Oh, I just realized this is the same clip.” This was like the kitchen mum series that had been viewed millions of times. I’m all about working smarter and efficiently for myself. If I had my dream life, I’d love to do really more intensive everyday videos. I just don’t have the time. I do what I can. I also find it fun. It’s like a creative challenge as well. Sometimes that’s the thing. As a creative person, you can be so overwhelmed with there’s so many things you can do or talk about or create a video about. For me, having this umbrella of the nostalgia theme and even getting really specific with the ’90s mum series, it’s just fun to see how many things you can create out of that. It’s just like you end up being more creative because when you have a limitation, it forces you. Excuse me. I’m always wanting to evolve, and I’m not 100% what the future of everything is. I do enjoy having a character thing, and it’s not just about me as myself and my life. That’s what I enjoy about it, is it’s very much a separation. People don’t actually know much about my life if they follow me.
I want to do more stuff that’s different characters, and as I’m getting more in the comedy scene and trying to find ways to incorporate that as well, and doing some more collaborations as well is what I’d like to do more of.
Tubefilter: Have you thought about going full-time on content?
Retro Avocado: Yes. I’ve definitely thought about it. It’s definitely a goal. I consider it a part-time job at this moment in time. It’s such a tricky thing. It’s kind of a scary thought. I think when the time is right, I’ll know. The time is not right currently, but I definitely would like to. I feel like that makes sense for me, it’s just a matter of when, and I just going to keep on keeping on. I’d like to crack into YouTube more. I know that’s a really good– For creators, YouTube really has a little more stability, should I say. It’s like TikTok can get banned next week. I don’t know. Stuff like that is scary as a creator. Yes, I definitely would like to, it’s just a matter of making sure that makes sense for me and is viable.
Tubefilter: Do you have any other plans or goals for the future? I know you talked a little bit about how you want to get on YouTube and you want to start experimenting with other types of short-form as well.
Retro Avocado: Yes. A big goal is, I would really love to write either a short film or, hey, even a movie, I don’t know, or TV pilot or something. I would love to get into that realm, and I’ve seen that happen with other creators. I’d like to just learn more about it and get into that. That’s something that the sketch class really showed me that I like doing is writing comedy and not just doing it just me. Of course starring in whatever I’m creating for myself. I’d love to get back in the traditional acting world again. I don’t have a New York agent, so that’s something that is a big goal, so anyone out there, I’m out there and I’ve got real footage, but it’s tough to even navigate that world too. You have to decide where you put your efforts in, and I’ve taken a little back burner to that, but I’d love to get back into that. I would say an ideal world creating content, doing acting as well, but I would say primarily comedic stuff and writing. I think that would be a big goal for me, is to get back into that world.
Tubefilter: What has been your favorite part of this whole being on TikTok experience?
Retro Avocado: It’s really validating and nice just to have people like the stuff that you put out, which can be dangerous too because sometimes not everyone does like it. I think just being able to create something and make something that is 100% me, that I didn’t have to depend on anyone to help me with. I kind of did it all on my own. Everything I do is a one-woman show. I don’t have anyone helping me really. Maybe every once in a while, my husband will help film something if it’s outdoors. It’s so incredibly rare that I do that because I don’t like to film outside because I don’t want people looking at me, but I’ll put out stuff and I don’t care if millions of people see it, but sometimes I’m like, ah, the influencers in the wild sort of thing. Anyway. I forgot what I was saying. What was the question?
Tubefilter: What’s been your favorite part of being on TikTok?
Retro Avocado: Oh, yes, favorite part. Just creating stuff that I think…The world is so crazy, and there’s so much depressing stuff. I find it really fulfilling to be able to just be a safe, comforting place for someone to just feel the warm and fuzzy feelings and just have a smile and a laugh. At the end of the day, if I can bring that to somebody, sometimes I downplay it in my head, I’m like, “Oh, I’m just making stupid little videos or whatever,” but I think I’m very hard on myself. I think it really does bring a little spark of glimmer of joy to the world. That is probably the best part about it. Just being able to connect with so many people. I’ve made a lot of good friends in real life and online through doing this, had so many cool experiences that I wouldn’t have otherwise.
I also really like that I can share the wealth with my friends and family and take them to some cool events maybe they would’ve gotten to go to. When I can really share that with others, I find that really fulfilling. Yes, ultimately just the connection. I think everybody wants to be heard. If I can make people feel that, feel heard, or feel seen in some way, or trigger a comforting thought or memory, that’s what it’s all about for me.
