Karly Polkosnik tested positive for COVID-19 and is stuck in Nashville.
It's not much, but the development in early February is of interest to roughly 300,000 people who follow the born-and-raised Edmontonian online.
Polkosnik is what's known as an influencer – an internet celebrity type who leverages their often carefully curated social media feeds to sell a certain lifestyle and products (influence, if you will).
So the derailment of the Nashville trip with a group of influencers for Black History Month could have posed some obstacle to Polkosnik, whose job is also to entertain, inspire and educate.
But the 25-year-old makes do even while sick with COVID-19, posting updates for some 35,000 followers on Instagram, like a video of an example "isolation morning routine."
Her TikTok page isn't forgotten either. The same morning routine gets posted there, along with a light-hearted sketch, a Valentine's Day-themed video, and an ad for Victoria's Secret in which Polkosnik boasts about the company's wide range of sizes. All were filmed in her Nashville quarantine apartment.
"This was really just a time where I got to sit here and really think about what I want my brand to look like for the next year, the content I want to put out, the content creator I want to be, how I want to grow my team," she said during a Feb. 11 interview.
A GROWING BRAND
The size of her following pales in comparison to others in the field, but it's growing fast enough that she's worked full time at it for three years now. Polkosnik has just under 9,000 followers on YouTube, where she publishes mainly lifestyle and vlog content. She's closing in on 280,000 followers on the internet's latest fad, TikTok, where a joke about needing more followers for her U.S. immigration application went a little viral. Over one 2019 night, Polkosnik went from 4,000 followers to 40,000, to her surprise.
"A lot of people were pressed about it," she laughs. "They're like, 'That's not how it works.' And I was like… 'Welllll, that is how it works.'"
She also has a podcast, which focuses on dating and relationships. And a merchandise line. And a blog, which is where everything began. Polkosnik used to write about being a cheerleader for Edmonton's professional football team, but the platform morphed as she leaned into the next chapter of working life.
"It's always been such a fascinating world. I've always been very into technology and I'm very into the constant changing environment of social media and entertainment," Polkosnik says.
BODY POSITIVITY ON TIKTOK
TikTok has brought the biggest change for Polkosnik. Not only did it thrust her career forward in a way the other platforms hadn't, but it was where she really got her footing as a young, Black, plus-size influencer.
Dancing constituted a large share of TikTok in 2019 when Polkosnik joined, so it was a natural move for someone who used to dance competitively and professionally.
"I never really set out on TikTok with the intention to be that person who was the body positivity [person], the confidence person," Polkosnik told CTV News Edmonton. "But what ended up happening was I just showed up as myself and people were like, 'Wow, I have never seen somebody with my body type on this app.'"
Polkosnik realized her dance background had taught her confidence and acceptance that "maybe a lot of other people didn't have."
Body positivity has since become a cornerstone of Polkosnik's online persona. She partners with size-inclusive brands and posts photos in which her stretch marks are visible. In February, she participated in a campaign for National Eating Disorder Awareness Week.
"I'm very passionate about making sure everybody has equal opportunities to, like, wear clothing – because that's a big discrepancy too, what is available to plus-sized people versus what's available for straight-sized people. I love being an advocate and having this platform, essentially, to talk about things like price parity… size inclusivity, body diversity in advertising."
'DOING BIG THINGS'
It goes hand in hand with increasing representation for people of colour.
Polkosnik likens herself to a kind of inside woman.
"Being somebody who can now be on the forefront of social media and can be somebody who is not straight sized, who is not white, who has textured hair, who has a tooth gap, who is a Black person… I'm now in a unique position as well to highlight things like influencer price and [the] pay gap between white and Black influencers," she said.
"I enjoy having a platform and being able to be like, 'This is what you should care about,' and have people listen to me."
Polkosnik has other work to finish in the U.S. before she returns to Edmonton, but she claims the trips to Nashville and L.A. will stay just that: trips. A part of influencer life. Being the (comparatively) small-town girl from Canada is a point of pride. She's quick to point out she supports the Royal Alberta Museum and sits as the diversity and inclusion chair of the Canadian Football Cheerleaders Alumni Organization, and also that she loves the river valley that runs through Alberta's capital city.
"I think it's cool to also be someone who now is going to events in L.A. with YouTube as a content creator out of Edmonton," she says.
"I don't personally know a lot of social media people or actresses or these larger level people – people who aren't hockey players, essentially – who are from Edmonton doing big things."
With files from CTV News Edmonton's Carlyle Fiset
