Why is everyone unfollowing Vexbolts? All about the TikTok star at the center of a viral online movement

TikTok star Vexbolts (VB in short) has currently become part of a viral trend where people are gearing up to unfollow him on New Year’s Eve 2024. Titled, “Vexbolts Mass Unfollowing December 31st,” the unfollowing drive has earned the content creator four million followers in less than 48 hours, on top of his existing two million followers, making it a total of six million. The idea is to first follow him, and then unfollow later.

However, approximately one million people have unfollowed him prematurely. Thus, the current count of followers stands at five million. It remains to be seen how many followers he ends up losing on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, it remains unclear as to why people want to unfollow Vexbolts. While some believe it’s because of his “cringeworthy” content, others think the trend is just an internet gimmick.

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Exploring who Vexbolts is

Vexbolts is primarily a video gaming content creator who is popular for his Fortnite-based content on his eponymous TikTok account. He is also known for his satire and parody of hit songs where he replaces certain lyrics with brain-rot terms.

The 19-year-old made his debut in 2021 with his video on Fortnite’s rotating emotes. The influencer, however, became a household name after his “dojo cat better be using code Vexbolts as well” video garnered severe traction in August 2022 and earned more than two million views.

He also makes his own content on Twitch live stream and is active on X and Instagram as well.

He has collaborated with the likes of other video game content creators such as Ninja and is a member of YeSquad. For the unversed, YeSquad is a shared YouTube channel for gaming, prank, and challenge-based shorts which was founded in 2022.

Its members include VB, yeSloth, Screedi, Jonathan Reed, GoofyYaHurd, and Bxrry. The channel now has nearly a million subscribers. Their “Is Speed Racist” short went viral last year with over 46 million views.

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More about Vexbolts’ mass unfollowing campaign

Amid the ongoing “Vexbolts Mass Unfollowing December 31st” campaign, people on TikTok and YouTube are doing his live follower count. Meanwhile, the influencer himself took to TikTok on December 25, disregarded the trend, and simply celebrated his two million follower gain in less than two days.

Notably, other content creators have also joined the campaign. While IShowSpeed has urged people to unfollow Vexbolts saying, "This is the funniest thing on the app right now," others like JasonTheWeen and StableRonaldo have suggested against it. JasonTheWeen shared during one of his livestreams, “It’s ridiculous! Let the guy live!”

The viral online unfollowing movement began last week. However, it has now gained severe popularity with hashtags and social media users asking each other to “spread the word.”

Notably, other users and influencers have been making promotional videos for the campaign which are set to one of the signature tunes often used by VB himself, such as the Low Taper Fade meme.

For instance, on Christmas Day, a TikToker with the handle @unemployedcrashout made a video that earned more than 530,000 views in less than 24 hours.

In the wake of this, the influencer took to his channel on December 29 and joked about the fluctuation among his followers and asked popular streamer Kai Cenat to “save” him from “mass unfollowing.”

The clip which ended with a screenshot of his live follower rise and drop, has earned 8.5 million views at the time of writing.

In a previous video, he also urged people to stop the trolling/ unfollowing campaign against him and “take me to 2025.” He also claimed that the trend began because he “ruins memes” with his brain rot content.

In his latest video, the now-viral content creator went on record to say, "Whatever happens, happens! If you're here on January 1, you're a real one."