In January, Katie Feeney nervously waded throughout the turf at FedEx Discipline, residence stadium of the Washington Commanders (previously Redskins).

The Maryland native, 19, had been invited by the group to unofficially attempt out for a position that didn’t yet exist — the Commanders’ social media correspondent. And although she is a thing of a content savant — having amassed almost 7 million followers on TikTok and 900,000 on Instagram, and attained an eye-popping fortune — this was a full other problem.  

“I was taking pictures guiding-the-scenes content of the players warming up, hanging out with the followers, anything at all they did just before the match, basically,” Feeney reported.

She handed with flying colours.

The team’s posts on Instagram generally carry in quite a few thousand likes and 100 or so feedback. Feeney’s, having said that, attained far more than 42,000 likes and 730 remarks.

“After she arrived to the residence finale final year, our conversation evolved into how she and the workforce could mutually develop their partnership in 2022,” explained Kevin Kline, the Commanders’ social media director.

Now, she is the team’s official social media correspondent, and the 1st individual to keep these types of a job in the NFL.

“There aren’t a large amount of people my age in the specialist sports activities industry — and there absolutely are not a whole lot of women — so getting ready to do this feels genuinely cool,” Feeney mentioned. 

In addition, “My more mature brothers and I have generally been huge Commanders admirers. We cherished likely to game titles expanding up.” She even introduced them and her mother and father with her to the recreation that landed her the NFL gig.

“It was surreal,” Feeney explained. “But I was equipped to inquire the gamers for photos without sensation shy and embarrassed.”

The 1st one particular she approached? Terry McLaurin, the team’s huge receiver: “It was past amazing and my brother was freaking out.”

The youngest of three youngsters — her father is a deputy state’s attorney her mother, an function planner — Feeney embarked on her social media journey at age 13 on Musical.ly (which later on morphed into TikTok), putting up short videos with her following-university dance teammates doing to well known music.

“I made comedy video clips, also,” she added. “I hadn’t gotten into a niche however, but I had pleasurable. But Musical.ly wasn’t neat at all — specifically not in the way that TikTok is amazing [now].”

So much so, it created her a concentrate on.

“In center school, I quit for about a 12 months mainly because kids were being offering me this sort of a tricky time for it in university,” Feeney mentioned. “I’d appear home crying, stating ‘I do not want to do this. I do not want to be the unusual social media woman.’”

Immediately after a breather, she downloaded Snapchat and then TikTok and commenced submitting yet again.

But then the COVID-19 lockdown happened and Feeney, like many other People in america, was restless and bored. She utilized her newfound downtime to film Amazon product assessments of anything from skincare to mini cake-pop makers. “I had a good deal of time through that prolonged span so I’d film numerous periods per day,” she claimed.

The golden rule of social-media achievements is to post at minimum when a day to mature your following, and even however growth wasn’t Feeney’s target, she attained much more than three million followers on TikTok in just a couple of months.

And then an even crazier issue occurred.

In November of 2020, Snapchat launched its now-common Highlight feature, which lets customers write-up clips of up to one moment. Feeney was an early adopter, posting movies of her preferred products and solutions, with unboxing clips and demonstrations. Quickly, some of her films were being garnering tens of millions of sights for every day.

At the conclude of her very first 7 days, Feeney got a Snapchat notification that her content experienced earned her additional than $200,000. In just six weeks, she manufactured far more than $1 million on the app.

“I was absolutely shocked. My mom and dad and I didn’t think it was authentic at very first,” she explained.

Instead than splurge on a lavish new life style, she opened a 401K, invested, and paid out for for her training at Penn State, the place she just concluded her first year as a broadcast journalism key. She did not buy a new car or an condominium, or even a handbag.

“I designed this mad amount of income and have no plan what to do with it,” Feeney said. “I’m not a massive spender.”

In 2021, she created another $1 million-in addition from brand name offers and creator resources across Snapchat Highlight, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.

Feeney stated her loved ones, with whom she is dwelling with for the summer, pokes entertaining at her for complaining about Uber surcharges: “My mom will joke, ‘You can afford to pay for to spend an further $5 on an Uber. You just manufactured a million dollars.’”

Final 12 months, she interned for Penn State’s soccer group, doing social media, which is how Kline identified her.

“First and foremost, she’s a Maryland kid and her family are Washington lovers, and that … authenticity was what mattered most,” Kline claimed. “She’s [also] extremely versatile and is aware of how to actually suit in and adapt to any scenario.”

Feeney admitted she will get acknowledged all the time, typically on campus.

“People have been good and respectful. For the most part, I have received a large amount of positive responses, and it’s normally a pleasurable detail when somebody notices me when I’m out,” she mentioned.

And she’s arrive a extended way considering that substantial school, when she could rarely belly the damaging comments.

“If anyone is getting time out of their day to say some thing indicate, they are most likely likely as a result of a thing so I try not to acquire it personally,” she claimed, including that it’s a law of averages: “If you have a big pursuing on social media, you’ll get a lot of mean persons in your feed. But if social media and selling one thing you really like on social media is something that delivers people joy, preserve at it. If I can spread that concept … then I’ve succeeded.”

Despite the fact that she by now has her desire job, Feeney ideas to complete her schooling — and is not so guaranteed she’ll continue to be in the exact subject.

Social media, soon after all, is an at any time-evolving industry and Feeney realizes that it’s challenging, if not unachievable, to guess the place it may be in a number of several years. So she’s not decided to build her vocation close to it, even even though she does want to keep in sporting activities. 

“I’ve constantly loved likely to game titles, and staying on the industry with Penn Condition soccer is so remarkable. [Social media] has aided me realize the path I want acquire,” Feeney reported. “I would adore to be a sports activities broadcaster.”