During the first lockdown it seemed as if everyone was either keeping themselves busy by baking a sourdough loaf, improving their 5k running time or joining TikTok.
But two years after the start of the first national lockdown, some people have managed to turn their love of TikTok into more than just a short-term hobby.
The platform has given millions of users their chance to showcase their incredible, and often unusual, abilities and that's definitely been the case in Wales.
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It's no surprise that Welsh TikTok is brimming with incredible content and the creators behind them are amassing thousands or even millions of followers in the process.
We've rounded up some of the best accounts Wales has to offer.
Sarah New
Make-up artist Sarah New posted her first transformation video on TikTok from her bedroom in lockdown 2020.
Fast forward two years and the 21-year-old from Caerphilly now has over 2.5 million followers and is poised to launch a global make-up range.
Using the power of make-up and prosthetics Sarah has taken the internet by storm with her videos, which show her transforming into various celebrities, characters, emojis and more. Her success has been so huge on her account @sarahnewsfx that making TikTok videos is now her full-time job.
She said: "My first TikTok that actually blew up was a get ready with me style video where I did really curly hair. That got a million views, which was so crazy to me at the time. That was only a couple of months after I started TikTok. I do TikTok full time now. It's honestly my dream job to work for myself doing what I love. I feel so grateful for it."
Rhys Barber
The audiologist from south Wales is going viral with videos of ear wax removal on TikTok.
Rhys Barber started posting videos of ear wax removal procedures on his TikTok account @earwaxaudiologyassocuk to educate and inform people about ear health.
Now, his videos get millions of views from people all over the world.
An audiologist of 20 years, Rhys originally shared ear wax videos on YouTube. When TikTok began to become popular, he wanted to see if he could reach a new audience.
Rhys said: "We started on YouTube about four years ago. People are really used to seeing ear syringing but not many people had come across micro suction.
"We wanted to explain the process and procedure and demystify it. We posted a couple of videos on TikTok to see how they did and it just absolutely exploded. We get a lot more local interest from the videos.
"Some people seem to really like it. When we first started posting, we couldn't understand the attraction. We really thought it would be seen by other hearing professionals but it seems to get this really strong following who are really passionate about it. I think it falls into the same category as pimple popping. You see the end solution with the nice clear ear canal."
Dai Davison
During lockdown, some of us started creating TikToks to pass the time, and that's exactly what Dai Davison from Carmarthenshire did.
But for Dai - or @tomjoneswales to his followers - the hobby has turned into more than just a little bit of fun as he has gained more than 200,000 followers since the first national lockdown.
Dai says he finds weird things amusing so he began to film things that were happening in his local area that others might find funny.
He said: "I made a video about the queue in Tesco during lockdown, there was 100 people in the queue social distancing but nobody in the queue for Marks and Spencer and I said it must be because they charge four pounds for a bag of apples."
Jessie Davies
Jessie Davies has a stutter and went viral on TikTok after setting herself innovative challenges to build her confidence and educate others about speech impediments.
Jessie, a makeup artist from Mountain Ash in the Cynon Valley, started her own makeup line Mimi Darling Beauty named after her pug Mimi. She realised there was a gap in the market for good quality vegan and cruelty free products and decided to start her own brand.
One of her goals for 2022 is to open a pop up shop in Cardiff and to be able to offer masterclasses but she said her speech impediment was the only thing holding her back.
That was until she came up with the idea to post videos of herself approaching people in public to tackle her anxiety and build her confidence to help with her stammer.
The 28 year-old said: "I thought to myself I couldn't meet new people and stutter the whole time. I'm the face of the brand so I couldn't hide, I had to be open and honest about my struggles."
Since posting to her account on @Mimidarlingbeauty in November 2021 she has grown her following to 2.6 million and counting.
Darren Daniel
The 41-year-old from Neath is using TikTok to raise awareness of the symptoms of Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD).
Darren has been living with CKD for the last five years, getting a diagnosis after experiencing many common symptoms. He now creates videos about his experience of the condition on his TikTok account @ttkwarrior.
“I was tired all the time. I had swollen ankles, headaches, felt cold and dizzy. I had no idea what was wrong. So I went to the doctor who ran some blood tests, and told me that the problem was with my kidneys," Darren said.
“I didn’t know anything at all about kidney disease and I was unsure about what was going on. When you hear kidneys you think about transplant and dialysis, but I didn’t know much at all.”
Marc Jones
Before the pandemic, Marc Jones was happily making his living renovating houses and running his massage business.
But a chance illness meant the 35-year-old spent some time in the early months of lockdown at home working on his recovery.
Already a keen YouTuber, Marc decided to join TikTok, an app that was quickly gathering pace as one of the most popular video sharing platforms in the UK and across the world.
Fast forward 18 months, and Marc's hilarious videos reviewing often-impractical "hack" guides online are gathering audiences of millions.
His account, @the_mj_way, has more than 2.9 million followers and Marc has been able to take his main income from the platform.
Marc, from Merthyr Tydfil, said TikTok was recommended to him by a friend and he quickly became a well-known creator on the app, much to his humble surprise.
“I thought alright, I’ll give it a go, and it just kind of skyrocketed unexpectedly," he said. "I never anticipated that I would get into the millions, that is silly to me. It went mental last Christmas, I probably gained one-and-a-half million followers in about two months, it was a mental time."
Cat Keenan and Shaun Nyland
The Welsh couple quit their day jobs to become full-time social media stars and said they made more than their monthly salary in one day on TikTok.
The Newport duo worked as a dog walker and sales manager at Parcelforce before quitting to spend their days making content on the social media app. Cat Keenan ( @itscatkeenan ) and Shaun Nyland ( @Shaun.Nyland ) joined the app in November 2019 but saw their follower count grow rapidly over lockdown and they now have more than five million followers between them.
To the shock of their fans, the pair - who have two children together - broke up in February 2020.
However, the pair remained firm friends and hit national headlines in October 2021 when Shaun stunned Cat live on TikTok by telling her he'd paid off her mortgage on her 31st birthday.
It saw the couple getting back together in January this year - which was of course announced on TikTok.
Rhys Evans
The postman has been delivering mail in Caerphilly for the past 18 years, but in recent months the father-of-two has been bringing more than just letters to people's doorsteps.
As he goes around house-to-house with his full satchel, residents rush to their windows excited for him to walk up their drives.
But it's not because they're expecting a special delivery, rather, they're waiting in anticipation for Rhys to burst into song.
Then one day in June this year, he decided to share his passion with hundreds of viewers on his TikTok account - @rhysTheSingingpostman - after he caught the eye of one of his customers.
"I downloaded TikTok a couple of weeks before I started uploading videos and I wondered if I should do it, because it wasn't something I thought I'd be doing. But I thought if I'm making people smile, it'd be worth it," he said.
"I uploaded it on Facebook and asked for some reactions because I wanted to start doing Tik Tok and I had lots of reactions. People laughing and telling me I should do it. A few days later I was travelling to Alton Towers with my family and we were talking about it and I decided to upload it to Tik Tok. My second video was then me singing at Alton Towers and it's all just spiralled from there, I'm singing so much and it feels good."
Dean Morris
Dean Morris from Llanelli goes under the TikTok name @dheanasaur.
He creates skits and comedy videos on the platform and now has over 285,000 followers on the platform.
Dean has been involved with filming - whether on screen or behind the camera - since 2007, but said he’d never had much success with it himself. His work was mostly based around helping creators from around the UK. He became involved with TikTok after it was recommended to him by a friend.
“He said, ‘Dean you’re really funny, you should jump on this new app. So I was like, ‘Ok, I’ll jump on and put a few funny skits on it just to pass the time.’ And then all of a sudden I started gaining followers on there,” Dean said.
Dean had tried YouTube in the past, but had to use software and DSLR cameras to create content for the platform. With TikTok, he says it’s a lot easier to make videos.
“The ease of access with TikTok - you could film it all on your phone if you wanted and post it straight from there and the settings and features it has are a lot more user friendly,” he said.
Ellis Lloyd-Jones
With over 180,000 followers and over 8 million likes across his videos, Ellis, from Treorchy, said his popularity rocketed overnight after posting a spoof video about ‘Welsh’ celebrities - taking big-name celebrities and changing their names to make them sound Welsh. It took him from 5,000 to 10,000 followers in just two weeks.
Another video of Ellis pretending to man a tollbooth welcoming viewers to Welsh TikTok - a virtual version of the old Severn Bridge tollbooth - won viewers from across the globe.
“I did it as a Welsh thing for Welsh people, thinking only they would see it but I got people from Australia and America and other countries. It was crazy,” he said.
Ellis started making TikToks on his account @Ellislloydjones in October 2019 after seeing videos on his Instagram feed of people showing their Halloween transformations.
“I thought ‘You know what, that’s what I want to do.’ At the time, I had three costumes - Anne Boleyn from Six the Musical, Pugsley Addams and Harley Quinn, so I went with Harley Quinn.”
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