‘I created my TikTok as a joke, to begin with,” laughs Georgia Awatea-Jones (Ngāti Maniapoto), 22. “Last October, my friend was like, ‘you should do that haka that’s trending’, and it just blew up.”
Georgia has just moved to Rotorua. She works in hospitality and as a Kōhanga Reo teacher – an aspect of her life that regularly features on her TikTok (@geooojones). When she isn’t working these jobs, she is sharing her whakapapa, daily life and comedic personality through her account and other Aotearoa-based channels such as Hahana.
“The reason that video blew up was because I got so much hate. It doesn’t affect me; I guess I’ve had it all my life. I got a comment on the haka video saying, ‘another white person reappropriating someone’s culture’. I had a fat laugh at that. I responded with a video of my pepeha and that’s currently sitting at 700,000 views.
“As a result of my video skyrocketing, I had quite a few different influencers reach out to me to make sure I was okay and encourage me to continue. I got
