If you’re constantly checking TikTok, by now you’d know that things go pretty fast in the platform. It doesn’t take much time for a catchy dance move or a dramatic video to go viral in the vertical space of social media and if you wanted to get your big break to become the next biggest influencer, TikTok would be the medium you would try to hook yourself to.
Among the thousands of creators on the platform, only a handful have figured out the recipe to churn out videos with millions of views and one of them is the Sway House. But who are the Sway House? What do they do? And more importantly, why are they in the news again? Let’s talk about that.
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What is Sway House?
The Sway House or Sway L.A. that the group calls themselves on social media are a TikTok collective put together by talent management company TalentX Entertainment. The group consists of six of the 32 influencer-cliental that TalentX has set up to live together and make content and more importantly, create content that goes viral.
Since they came together, the Sway House has gained over 1.3 million followers on Instagram and together have a fan following of 70 million followers across all social media platforms.
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Where is the TikTok sway House?
Sway House resides in a Bel Air mansion at 1939 Stradella Road in Los Angeles. The 8,562 square feet house owned by former Columbia Pictures CEO, Stephen T. Sohmer. The house, valued at over $10 million, is what’s rented out for free to the TikTok influencers ever since they moved in January 2020.
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Who is in the Sway House
Sway House features six TikTok creators living under one roof as part of their management company TalentX’s plan, comprising four teenagers and two 20-somethings, all of who get work done together.
Bryce Hall, aged 20, appears to be the group’s unofficial leader and has over 7.8 million followers on TikTok.
Griffin Johnson is the oldest member of Sway House at 21 and he has over 6.3 million followers on TikTok.
The one with the biggest fan following in Sway House is Josh Richards. The seventeen-year-old has over 18.6 million followers on TikTok alone.
The second-most-popular one is Anthony Reeves and there are over 9 million people who follow the eighteen-year-old on TikTok.
Jaden Hossler and Kio Cyr are the other two teenage influencers who share the Bel Air mansion with the Sway House and both of them have over 6 million followers each on TikTok.
Their latest endeavors and why that’s causing problems
When you put four teenagers and two 20-somethings inside a Bel-Air mansion free-of-rent, it’s bound to cause chaos and the creators with their party-boy pranks have made a life for others in the area pretty hard. According to New York Times page ‘The TikTok House Wreaking Havoc Next Door“, the group seems to be living their life in the wealthy LA neighborhood in what appears to be a frat-like lifestyle with loud music, repetitive food/online deliveries, and excessive trash on the street.
The young boys are also seen passing through the street in their old gray car that has their house name inscribed to it. The members of the group also appear to occupy an empty lot across the street from their Bel Air residence, often smoking. Besides loud music, the group is also seen screaming throughout the night, shooting paintballs and chanting “Chug! Chug! Chug!”. The group also didn’t stick to social distancing rules during the pandemic, even while hosting large gatherings.
This is how their neighbors reacted
While they initially assumed the group to be a bunch of tech entrepreneurs, the neighbors only found out that Sway House was a team of online influencers when they confronted them. According to the report, residents of the neighborhood say the area has transformed from a quiet place to something like “Coachella” (a music festival held in California).
The group’s next-door neighbors Amit Runchal and Mindy Acevedo complain that living and working from the house has become quite challenging. Acevedo, who is a law student at U.C.L.A. says she hears the sound of paintballs being shot as early as in the morning and “chug” chants when the group in near the pool. Runchal, a tech investment founder says many in the neighborhood feel harassed when a bunch of unknown people mistakingly show up on their doorsteps in hopes of seeing the Sway House.
Another anonymous neighbor complained that several women who are in search of the Sway House often mistake her house for that of the group, contributing to her husband and herself’s a sense of being “violated and scared”.
Another couple in the neighborhood reported that the foot traffic in the area has gone up ever since the group moved in. The couple says the house transforms into some sort of a nightclub on some occasions with young people standing or walking down the street.
What’s the group’s current status and has anything changed?
Although the group is active and doesn’t reveal much of their actual proceedings online, two members of the Sway House could actually be moving out of the mansion. Sway House might soon be without Josh Richards and Jaden Hossler as the two TikTok creators revealed that they would be moving out and getting their own apartment.
The departure of the two comes as an aftermath of a road trip that resulted in Jaden Hossler and Bryce Hall getting arrested on drug charges in Lee County, Texas. Hall took to Medium to apologize to his fans, group, and community saying things like “(letting) LA partying lifestyle to consume (him)” and that he has “let the fame get to (him)”.
Is Sway House gone for now?
News of the departure has been pretty sweet for Sway House’s neighbors as they feel the area has returned to a state of normalcy. One of the neighbors said, “Things have quieted down significantly in the past few days”.
Sway House has since taken things slow after their Memorial Day altercation and we can expect this to stay the same if the group wishes to not earn any more bad name in the media.
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Source: NYT
