Meet Viral TikToker Tony Statovci, Who Believes The Internet Is The Way Out

Tony Statovci sure can talk a lot.

The Nashville-born, Georgia-raised content creator has been making some incredibly funny skits on TikTok since at least 2020. They're always short, no more than 40 seconds in length, but they left me dying. Whether he's joking about how North West be acting when Kim Kardashian is on live, what Drake be doing when listening to Kendrick's diss tracks, or how America and China were beefing over a balloon that one time, Statovci's videos are topical, punchy, and hilarious.

But although his videos are short, his sentences are long. What I thought was going to be a quick interview ended up being over an hour long of him talking anecdotes and cracking jokes—like one about a dinosaur named Thesaurus explaining the word "tomorrow" in The Land Before Time—at a breakneck pace. The interview was so long that my files got corrupted, and I lost the transcripts. Twice. It's a good thing I kept a back-up or our chat.

And I'm glad I did. Because even though he's a yapper, he yaps from passion. Born to a Yugoslavian refugee and living on Section Eight for most of his life, Statovci has been using the internet to carve out a little piece of online fame and financial stability for himself and his family—all with his Southern appeal, pop culture and IRL comedy, and silly videos. With 175K followers on Twitch, 855K subscribers on YouTube, 2.5 million followers on Instagram, and 4.8 million followers on TikTok, Statovci has come to believe that "the internet is the way to do anything that you want to do" in this life.

Complex caught up with Statovci to ask him why he believes that, as well as talking about some of his skits, what he thinks is going on with the TikTok ban-but-not-really thing that's happening, and how Percy Jackson saved his life.

(This interview has been edited and shortened for clarity.)

Tell me a little bit about yourself. Who is Tony? How long have you been creating content?

Tony Statovci: My name's not even Tony. My legal name is an Albanian one, but Tony's like an English nickname or version of it. My mom doesn't even call me my real name anymore. She calls me Tony. [laughs]My mom was a single mom, a refugee from Yugoslavia, but now it's called Kosovo.She was 18, fled from there, and landed in Nashville. She then had me in Nashville, like, immediately. So, I clutched the, uh, the citizenship for the fam.

But yeah, I made my first video about Zuko [from Avatar: The Last Airbender]. My second video was about Kakashi [from the Naruto series], and it blew up. It got like 300,000 views. And I was like, 'Oh, sh*t, that's dope.' I had a video hit four million views three or four months later, and I was like, ‘Okay, people f*cks with this.’ And then nothing for two years. It was cool, though, because I never did it to be a content creator. I just did it because it’s a fun hobby and I like making jokes. Eventually, my account went from 50,000 followers in about two years to one million in one year. A million is crazy! I was like, ‘All right, maybe I’ll keep doing this.’

One of my favorite skits of yours is the one about two parallel lines beefing. It’s so obvious yet so true. How do you come up with these skit ideas?

TS: It’s so weird. The best, most perfect way I can explain it is like a That’s So Raven vision. It appears in my foresight or something. Like, one recent skit I did was about Legalos from The Lord of the Rings and what archers be doing when they run out of arrows. I was watching The Lord of the Rings for the first time recently. My girl loves it. I was more tapped into Harry Potter. But anyway, I was watching that and Game of Thrones, and there’s a lot of archery in that, too. And so, my brain was like, ‘Are archers ever useful when they run outta arrows?’ It's like a different person lives in my brain and whispers funny situations and stupid jokes to me. I just say thank you, and I make the joke, which I pull from life, past experiences, shows and movies, and things like that.

I love that. So, you’re watching The Lord of the Rings. Do you have a favorite character yet? What about Game of Thrones or Harry Potter?

TS: Not yet on The Lord of the Rings. I’ve only seen the first movie, like, just this January. Game of Thrones, though, I know the answer. It might be cheesy, but it’s my man, my boy: Ned Stark. He’s so cold! My favorite Harry Potter character…I’m not gonna say Harry because I feel you should never say the main character. If not Harry, then Dumbledore. He’s also hella cold! That magic he got? Incredibly strong. Honestly, I’m just a fan of Perseus "Percy" Jackson. Actually, Percy Jackson is one of the reasons I’m alive.

I got really into reading when I was young. My mom was a refugee. My dad, when he was around…it was just abusive. I would escape in a book, and it was always Percy Jackson. His books mean so much to me. Like, we have no money for Christmas, my mom and dad are fighting, but Percy's fighting God. So like, he's having it worse than me. That helped me a lot.

That’s deep. Sounds like you really love storytelling. Talking about your skits, do you have a favorite one?

TS: I did one about an Anonymous Anonymous meeting. And for some reason, I don't know why, I love that joke so much. [laughs] It’s just, like, meaningless jokes. And I don’t mean that in a negative, but they’re just random and hilarious thoughts I have that just go viral. That’s the pocket of comedy I love. Ridiculous, situational stuff.

You’ve done some ads with Shaq and others. What has been your favorite moment with a celebrity?

TS: Oh, for sure Denzel Curry. My friend passed away at the beginning of 2023, and we loved his song, Walkin.

Oh my God, I’m sorry to hear that.

TS: Thank you. But I met Denzel one time in 2022. My boy loved him, so I told him I was with Denzel, and I FaceTime him. He was hyped. Then he passed away. I texted Zel and told him how much my homie loved that song. It was a good way to reminisce about my dog with an artist I like.

What did you think of the TikTok not-really-a-ban ban?

TS: Not to be super conspiracy theorist, but I genuinely don't think it's a super big security risk or anything. I mean, brother, Zuckerberg is inside our lungs right now. Like, he knows more about me than me, you know. And what's scary is now that I make these videos, he could have seen one and been like, ‘Oh, this is fire. Does he have an Instagram? All right, bet, where's his coordinates?’[laughs]

But here’s what I think happened. American lawmakers, the rich, were like, ‘TikTok is this big media giant. It's keeping people connected. But we don't own it, and we want to own it. We want to have it.’ If TikTok ever goes, though, it’s fine. I’m on everything. TikTok was my start, and it holds a special place for me. It was the birthplace of what I was able to do, what I am now, and who I could become. Still, it’ll suck if TikTok gets banned. It’s like a time capsule or a diary. It’ll also show content creators you should never have all your ego in one basket. TikTok’s got great discoverability, but as someone who makes content every day, I think Instagram has the better algorithm.

So, what’s replacing TikTok for you if it ever gets banned?

TS: Well, I'm already on everything else: Instagram, YouTube—even Facebook. I’m 24. I don’t know many people my age using Facebook, but I post my content on there to expand the audience further. And it weirdly works. It all helps grow my TikTok, which helps me grow the followings of all my other accounts as well.

Besides, I don't make money off TikTok because I don't make videos over a minute long. Everything I do is out of the love of comedy. People ask me, ‘Why don’t you just make longer videos?’ My skits have gotten me this far, and they work so much better as shorter moments. So, I don’t wanna change my formula just to make a couple bucks.

That makes sense. You’d rather not sacrifice the craft for the cash. What do you think of some of the TikTok clones popping off right now?

TS: I think we're seeing a, uh, part two of Vine. There were so many Vine-like apps that tried to replicate what Vine was doing but just couldn't do it. And then, Vine itself came back and a lot of people didn’t even know. It was called something else—Byte, right!— but it was from the co-creators of Vine. [Editor’s note: Originally called Clash, then Byte, and finally Huddles, the short-form video-sharing app was built as a successor to Vine by co-creator Dom Hofman, which was discontinued in May 2023.] No one cared. It's because the thing that makes TikTok special, or the thing that makes Instagram special, or a movie special—that’s hard to replicate. I think that’s why people don’t really like remakes. It’s hard redoing something that was already great.

Though you don’t make money off TikTok, would a ban affect your bottom line at all?

TS: I do make money off of brand deals, and because of my large following on TikTok, I’d be hurting that way, especially since I do all this myself with no management or representation. But then I’ve got my Instagram, so I can just flip and do brand deals there. So, like, I’d lose a little bit of money, but it wouldn’t be diabolical or anything because I have other accounts with sizable followings. Again, though losing TikTok would suck for people getting into content creation, I believe the internet is the way out.And by that, I mean it's the only way I truly think you're going to put in work for something and get back tenfold what you put in.

Like the days of working a solid job and getting solid benefits and retiring and being able to live off that with your family—those days are over. Like, like it's not the sixties and the seventies anymore. You can't work a factory job and have your wife stay home and have two kids and two cars in a nice house anymore. You just can't do that. But the internet is the way to do anything that you want to do. You don’t even have to be making, like, 50,000, 100,000 a month. If you wanna pay your rent, save for a trip, afford education—I have a friend who streams on Twitch, and in his first month, he made almost $700. It’s not a lot of money, but it’s $700 more than he had before. Add that up over a year, and you’re supplementing your income by just being funny and being you online.

I feel like we’re in the beginning of the new age of, like, carving out your place on the internet. It could be huge, it could be small. It could pay off your phone bill, it could feed your grandkids. Your community can be whatever you want or need it to be, but you never really have to scale it to make it online. I keep thinking a lot of people severely underestimate the power of the internet and how it can break the chains of poverty. Coming from a refugee mom living on Section Eight and food stamps, I never thought I’d be able to meet these celebrities and do nice things for my mom all because of TIkTok, because of the internet. I have to stop myself from sounding crazy telling people that this is the way out. This is how you break out the matrix. You get into the internet. [laughs]

I actually have a question for Complex. That comedian's list. Where was I at?

[laughs] You mean, The Funniest People on the Internet Right Now?

TS: Yeah, that one.

That one came out before I started here. I remember getting asked who I thought were some funny people on the internet during the interviewing process for this job, and I believe I said your name.

TS: [laughs] Yeah. It's all good. I didn't even know the list. But some people sent me the list and were like, ‘Yo, you got robbed.’ I just thought it was dope seeing all these different comedians on that list. They’re all hilarious.