Rachel Marie Vining is making her mark online, amassing millions of views and followers on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and other social media platforms. The Mobile native is known by her fans on her “Rae’s WAY Overdoing It” channels, and they love her for her comedic sketches on such topics as being raised as a homeschooler and navigating parent-and-child relationships between different generations. Her faith background influences all of her content creation, and she proudly proclaims that Christians should be producing quality and clean material.
The Online Journey.
Five years ago, at the age of 17, Vining started her online channels. Two years ago, she began to see her content skyrocket in popularity. Vining currently has 151,000 followers on TikTok, where her most viewed video titled “a day in the life of a homeschooler”- has almost 13 million views. She has 435,000 followers on Instagram and almost 400,000 subscribers on YouTube (where her total views are close to 194 million, and she’s currently averaging around 40 million views a month). She’s also a top producer on Amazon, where she has a successful storefront. Her favorite platform is Instagram, where she gets the most reach. “I get the most consistent views there, and have more followers,” Vining says, adding that she’s always on the lookout for new opportunities. “I’m currently trying to grow my Snapchat, because it’s really begging for good creation on that platform,” Vining said. “That’s my new territory.” She’s well known online and has been spotted “in real life” as a social media influencer, and recently attended VidCon (a national convention where successful influencers gather to learn and socialize). It’s a level of success that Vining said she could never have imagined as a teenager who was discouraged by her parents to even view videos on YouTube. She’s learned to appreciate an upbringing that challenged her to use her faith in an alternative and creative way. “As a kid, I knew I wanted to do something ‘big,’ like singing, but because I didn’t get a lot of support, I had to figure it out myself,” she said. “I really felt like it was me against the world.” She first made money online via her Amazon storefront, where she posted product review videos and skits. After she made $1,000 a month on Amazon, she felt legitimate and validated. Vining began to experiment with different types of content, and soon found that comedy was what resonated with her audience. “I learned that authenticity is what really works,” she said, noting that she couldn’t be something she wasn’t. “As long as what I do is authentic, then people will respond.”
Her comedy sketches deal with topics that many people can either identify with personally or that they find funny as they relate to current pop culture. On TikTok, for example, Vining’s recent popular videos include funny takes on homeschooling, impersonations of celebrity JoJo Siwa, comedic conversations between Gen-Z children and Baby Boomer parents, and collaborations with other influencers she met at VidCon. The idea for much of her content comes from her own experiences, as well as interactions with other people from a similar background. “I’ll talk with people about their experiences and find that a lot of our feelings are the same,” she said. “As a homeschooler, I was very awkward and uninformed about stuff. Those experiences show up in my comedy, and people have really liked them. And other people who were homeschooled often tell me that they identify with what I have to say.” Vining started college at the age of 15 as a dual enrolled student and graduated with a degree in business administration from Thomas Edison State University at the age of 19. On Instagram, Vining’s videos are divided up into categories including Sarcastic Rae, Chatty Rae, Catness Rae, FanGirl Rae, and Actress Rae. But she also includes “Christ Follower” in her description on Instagram and is up front that, while her comedy isn’t Christian, she is a person of faith who is committed to creating material that anyone can watch.
The Faith Thread.
Vining grew up in a Baptist household and still worships at a Baptist church but was inspired by the comedy of Studio C– a sketch television show produced by BYUtv, a channel and family-friendly streaming service founded in 2000 at Brigham Young University. The Studio C YouTube channel has more than 3.3 million subscribers and has received more than 3 billion views. “I saw that success and was just interested in what makes people laugh,” she said. “I wanted to specialize in clean comedy. I wanted to create something that people wouldn’t have to be embarrassed by or roll their eyes at to forward it along to other people.” She mentions the faith-based inspiration on her YouTube channel description: “I create clean, original, relatable comedy kits. My passion is writing and acting! I was greatly inspired by the sketch comedy style of Studio C. I’m a Christian, 22-year-old college graduate living in Alabama. I’m blessed to be a full-time content creator supporting myself entirely independently.” Vining said that she gets a variety of responses from Christians to her comedy sketches and other online content. Most responses are positive, but she occasionally is challenged with the idea that she should be more “obvious” with a Christian message. She, however, believes that her message can be best presented in a more nuanced way; in fact, she can reach more people for Christ with her general, clean approach to comedy. “I met a friend of a friend one time, and she said that she’d heard about my platform. She wanted to know how I use it to spread the Gospel,” she said. “I told her that I don’t. You can’t force the message on viewers.” Instead, Vining prays that her faith shines through in her comedy. “My content is brand-safe and includes nothing controversial,” she said. “And it’s something that anyone can watch.” Vining said that there are surprisingly plenty of Christian content creators online today; they aren’t “branded” as Christians, but they’re proud for people to know that they live a life of faith. “I get really excited when I meet a fellow creator and find out that they’re a Christian,” she said. “It’s important for Christians to be making good content.”
The Lessons Learned.
Vining is still young, but she’s already learned many important lessons about following dreams and having goals. In fact, she said that she encourages parents to give their children a wide range of opportunities. “Let your children figure out who they are, instead of saying ‘this is who you need to be.’ If your child tells you that she wants to be a singer, put her in voice lessons,” Vining said. “If she says she wants to be a dancer, let her take classes. If they don’t like it, they can stop it. But it lets them explore those creative dreams.” Vining firmly believes that God puts intuition, goals, and dreams in our hearts for a reason. Vining also said that online opportunities are something that the younger generation should be given opportunities to explore. While older generations may not understand social media, content creation, and other online opportunities, they should be willing to open their minds to these new areas. Whatever direction a child, a young businessperson, or anyone with a dream goes toward, Vining said that it’s important to have courage and to be your own advocate. “My advice is not to wait. I want you to hurry up and fail, because every failure is a lesson that’s going to help you get ahead,” she said. “A week or a month or a year from now, you can look back on the failure and learn from it. You’ll look at it in a totally new way.” Ultimately, however, Vining said that it’s important to trust God along your journey. Despite early discouragements and challenges, Vining said that she can look back now and see how God guided her every step of the way. “I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t open to God’s will, and if I hadn’t asked God for help,” she said. “I feel like I’ve had the biggest blessings and halos over my head. God has blessed me, and I look back now and really see where He worked.”
Cheryl Wray
