Caleb Finn, Australia's second most influential creator

An e-boy making horror-movie-inspired videos to a family man sharing his son's first words with his 16m followers, Caleb Finn has found success on TikTok since the early days.

Caleb Finn has over 15 million TikTok followers. Picture: Arsineh Houspian

An e-boy making horror-movie-inspired videos to a family man sharing his son's first words with his 16m followers, Caleb Finn has found success on TikTok since the early days.

The second most powerful influencer in Australia is an OG TikToker who knows social media fame comes with big "asterisks" like loss of privacy but still believes it's the "best job in the world".

A teacher for six years before being fired due to fanatic school hood TikTok fans, Caleb Finn, 27, built a following and then a family on social media.

When Caleb (@caleb.finn) "blew up" in 2019, he was posting lots of horror-movie-inspired videos to TikTok for an audience of largely 13 to 16-year-olds.

He now posts cinematic skits with his partner Soup, 26, who he met in late 2019, and heartfelt videos with their six-month-old baby, for an audience of 18 to 23 year-olds.

@caleb.finn

5 months old 🥹

♬ Jude's Song - Connor Price

"I think I've found myself very lucky that I'm one of the OGs for the app and I'm still here, I'm still growing. I'm still getting to do what I'm doing nearly five years later. It's pretty crazy," Caleb says.

He introduced Soup (@xlilsoup), who uses an internet name for privacy like Caleb, "meticulously" to his fans to "create the narrative that she would be a fan favourite". They accepted her graciously.

When the couple had their son, who they call 'Finley' online, they wanted to extend that careful curation of an online persona to him, while still continuing to bring their loyal followers "along for the ride". So, they show the big moments like the lead-up to his birth and his first words, all while blurring his face.

Caleb and Soup are the ultimate creator power couple, coming in at number two and number 38 on The Influence Index - a world-first list that identifies the 100 most influential Australian creators. Both their primary incomes come from social media, which allows them to be stay-at-home parents. Soup has her own TikTok channel with 2.2m followers where she posts mostly 'mum content' but plays a "big visual role" on Caleb's channel.

@caleb.finn

i ship tbh might ask her out

♬ they might kiss x promiscuous - ‍

Caleb has 15.6m TikTok followers, 816,000 Instagram followers, and 219,000 YouTube subscribers. He films every single day and sometimes edits for up to 12 hours a day.

As Caleb grew up, he actively pursued a more mature audience.

“I'm at that point in my life where it's time to be more mature, to start doing more adult things, and I'm glad that my fanbase can kind of engage with that and follow along with that next point in my life.”

He also altered his content after having a child.

"Before we had the baby, I think I took a lot more risks with trying to push how far I could take content before getting in trouble," he says.

"I've been wanting to be a parent since I was like 15 so it's a big deal for me to have a kid and it's like if the internet thought that I was a dropkick dad, that'd be really upsetting to me."

A massive fear for the young parents is that a fan on the street will take a picture of their newborn son. “Just one picture” and all the time spent pre-planning his online presence would be for nothing, they say.

“We took so many precautions and made so many sacrifices to make sure that he's got his privacy ... Like we had to ask every single family member not post anything, his grandparents can't post anything, they can’t show his picture. If anyone at work asks them about their grandkid, they have to give the fake name,” Caleb says.

Along with that, they can no longer walk down the street or go window shopping without getting ambushed by fans. If they want to go out for groceries, they have to do it before 3.30pm when kids get off school. A few weeks ago, a group of kids found out where they lived and started throwing rocks at the house. 

Despite losing aspects of privacy, he still says it's "one of the best jobs in the entire world".

"If a kid was all starry-eyed about being a content creator, I'd absolutely say just go for it. Because I mean it's a big mental thing to think about, there's so much you have to show of yourself on camera, to the world, and you lose a lot of aspects like your privacy. But for us to be celebrated for being completely you and to be so accepted and loved by so many people is an insane feeling."