Nikita Crump

TikTokker / VanLife Personality

(in her words)

At the start of this whole living-in-my-car thing, everything was so different. I was working at a T.J.Maxx, hardly making enough money to survive, paying rent late, begging my manager for more hours and more training for my alleged promotion, eating those $1.29 packs of ramen regularly, or not eating at all. I was tired of stressing over money and living a half-ass life, so I finally said “screw this shit” and decided to move into my car.

Halloween night - October 31, 2019… I moved in. It was weird, but it was also okay. Hardly anyone knew, and the few who did know, weren’t exactly understanding or supportive. But, with or without support, it felt like the right move; it was going relatively well, and the stress of paying rent was gone. I didn’t realize just how much that was weighing on me, until it was gone. I started to feel happier and more free all around. I documented updates on my YouTube, where I had just 69 subscribers at the time.

July 3, 2020 I made my first TikTok. It’s just a dumb, 14-second video of me washing my head in the bathroom sink at work, and displaying this device I use to do so. (We were still rolling deep in COVID-19 restrictions, so my gym wasn’t an option for a shower anymore.) I hardly even understood the app —wtf is a FYP?— but the views started pouring in at an overwhelming rate and that dumb video set my future in motion. Today, I have the opportunity to make these kinds of videos, my full-time job. What a fucking dream.

I still have the same notebook that I had at the beginning of this, with my pros-and-cons-of-livng-in-my-car list. It’s funny to look back at it today and see the themes of the last couple years of my life. It begins with lots of lists of budgets and plans on how I could save more/spend less per month. There’s even a list of fun, cheap things I can do, like hike, crochet, and attend free concerts. Then it moves onto the pros & cons of car-life, and quickly onto what items I should look into to make life-in-a-car a bit easier (like my Jackery 160, a gym membership, and my clothing organizers). It carries on with van plans, and finally… interview questions for news medias like BuzzFeed and BBC World News. The progression of this notebook boggles my mind. Who could foresee this wild butterfly effect? All because of that stupid, little TikTok.