TikTok Star William White Is Still Making Videos, but Not Thirst Traps

Social media is old enough now that all of us have seen countless examples of regular people who have skyrocketed to fame thanks to their profile on one platform or another. TikTok has been that vehicle for many people, including Canadian William White, who began posting there in 2020 and quickly earned a pretty devoted following.

William, who worked as a landscaper before TikTok became highly lucrative, is now the subject of a new documentary called Thirst Trap: The Fame. The Fantasy. The Fallout. Given the existence of the documentary, many want to better understand what William's story is. Here's what we know.

William White launched to prominence after he started posting on TikTok in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Posting started as a past-time for the young man, but quickly became much more, per the Manchester Evening News. A video in which he lip syncs to the Barry Manilow song "Mandy" was the first video of his to go viral on the platform, and he quickly began earning a dedicated following of older woman who could be described as cougars.

These middle-aged woman became infatuated with William, and organized themselves into a group known as the Grotto Girls. They began showering him with gifts, including one woman who sent him $200,000. All William had to do was continue to post thirst traps, and address the women by name in his video when they sent him a gift. After he slept with one of his online followers, though, the community began to become jealous of one another, and it got quite vicious.

This shift toward toxicity led to William sometimes reacting negatively during interactions with his fans. As the documentary explains, he could be curt or short with them, and those negative interactions damaged his overall image as a heartthrob.

As his online following began to dwindle, William went in search of a new beginning, and found it when he was baptized on Marmari Paradise Beach in Greece.

Although he has taken some breaks from posting, William is still posting to his TikTok, although the videos aren't usually thirst traps these days. He also said that he's felt "different" since he was baptized, but acknowledged that it could be because of Jesus or the placebo effect. "I guess we'll never know," he said.

While William seems to have stepped away from the most lucrative part of his TikTok career, he did say that he still has ambitions for his own future.

"When I'm 30, in five or six years, I hope I'm an actor," he explains in the documentary. Given the ardent fandom he was able to generate online, it seems fair to say that he has the kind of charisma that could make him a successful actor. Of course, there are also other skills required to make it big in Hollywood, but with a name like William White and a pretty face, it's fair to say that he might have a leg up in the industry if he wants in.