Like most college-aged students, sophomore biology major Lanie Kristin Draughon who goes by Lanie Kristin on social media, discovered social media at a young age. In Draughon’s case, it was when her mother finally agreed to let her download Instagram in the third grade. However, unlike most others, Draughon has been able to find success out of her love of content creation as an influencer.
Once Draughon began posting way back in elementary school, she never stopped — not even when she was made fun of by her classmates. Draughon said she began taking social media more seriously in high school, and she continued to post consistently until one day, during the spring break of her senior year in high school, everything changed with one TikTok video.
“I posted a little day in my life at the beach,” Draughon said. “It was probably like eight seconds, and it got half a million views. … I gained 20,000 followers in the span of like three days.”
Less than two years after Draughon posted her first viral video, she has amassed 34,000 followers on Instagram and nearly 100,000 followers on TikTok. According to the social media management platform Sprout Social, Draughon’s follower count classifies her as a “micro-influencer.” Her TikTok videos have a total of 11.7 million likes, with her most popular video having accumulated more than 1.2 million likes and 8.1 million views.
Draughon considers most of her content to fall under the lifestyle category. She frequently posts “day in my life” and “get ready with me” videos in addition to videos with viral sounds and trending topics. She said she reposts her TikTok videos to Instagram reels if they fit the time frame, although she loves being able to post pictures to Instagram, as photos are her favorite type of content to post.
Being able to share her experiences is Draughon’s favorite part about posting to social media, but it doesn’t come without the risk of receiving hate, she said.
“People really have a problem with my reels, especially my positive content,” Draughon said. “I just recently had a video go viral and I don’t know how many comments, probably like 2,000 comments, and they’re all negative. It was a video of me that was five seconds, and I was just like, ‘I’m so happy to wake up and live every day.’”
Draughon said that when she receives hate comments, she tries to ignore them and not take them personally. Positivity is a central part of Draughon’s character, and she says that despite the hate she may receive for it, spreading positivity in her posts is something she is devoted to doing.
“I feel like that’s kind of been my purpose with social media,” Draughon said. “Being able to share that positive side of life, that you will get your spark back and that things will be OK again. Things have to be hard before they get good, and that really makes you appreciate it. That’s kind of what I’ve held like in my heart while doing social media — that maybe if just one person hears this and they can be better from it … they take a little piece of what I’ve been through to move on.”
Draughon said it’s not just random people on the internet who don’t like the content she posts, though. While in high school, she was in a four-year relationship with someone who didn’t like her posting as much as she did. Draughon ended up going through a bad breakup but shared her philosophy of there “always being rainbows after the rain” which inspires her to get through emotional times.
Natalie Nicholson, a sophomore psychology major, said she follows Draughon on TikTok and Instagram and appreciates the positivity her videos spread.
“I like her content because it’s refreshing to see someone romanticize all the mundane parts of college that I take for granted,” Nicholson said. “I feel more motivated to wake up early and start my day on a positive note when I see how positive she is every day.”
As a micro-influencer, Draughon has relationships with many different brands that gift her items and ask to work with her. Many of these companies are small and local businesses that sell clothes and beauty products, but Draughon has also received PR from big-name brands like Ulta, CASETiFY and Princess Polly.
One of Draughon’s most consistent and long-standing partnerships is with Alani Nutrition, a wellness brand with over 1 million followers on Instagram. She began working with them during her freshman year at UT in October 2022 and frequently features their energy drinks in her videos with the phrase “first sip best sip.”
While Draughon said she’d love to do influencing full-time, she’s unsure if this would make her fulfilled and that she’s devoted to finishing her degree in biology. She plans to continue content creation as long as she can but also wants to pursue a career in medical aesthetics. In the future, she says she may consider combining both passions by documenting her career on social media.
With the amount of hate and stress social media can bring, social media can sometimes feel like too heavy of a burden to bear. Draughon admitted that while she’s dealt with her fair share of being made fun of, it’s not enough to destroy her love of posting content. Whenever she feels down, she thinks back to her senior year self who was “posting like an influencer” even though she didn’t have the followers.
“When these followers came to me, I felt like it was … I don’t know, like a God thing,” Draughon said. “This is what’s going to make me feel happy, and I just try to do all of what I do right now for that girl who was so hurt her senior year.”
Lanie Kristin, who has amassed nearly 100,000 followers on TikTok, has a long-standing partnership with Alani Nutrition and frequently posts videos featuring the energy drinks.
