Meet Roland Pollard and his daughter Jayden. You may not recognize them just sitting in their living room, but nearly 7 million people recognize them from TikTok as the cheer-stunting father and daughter duo.
The two have done stunts since she was a baby, but people discovered them during the pandemic.
"It was really a dark time turned into a lot of joy," Jayden’s father Roland Pollard said.
Roland wanted to share their joy and like he was doing with his daughter lift others up.
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"My biggest thing was a father sharing a relationship with his daughter in an organic way,” Pollard said. “I was going to do it regardless, but people liked seeing it so I started posting more and more and more. Then people started sharing and we went viral for more and more things."
When asked why she likes stunting his daughter Jayden said, "It's fun."
Like sticking a stunt being a viral sensation has been fun and lucrative
It has changed our lives in every way possible.
Roland Pollard, Father
"Tons of opportunity. What comes about is brand partnerships. As you grow your channel brands would like to get on that channel as well," Pollard continued.
But with fame also comes a downside. You must deal with the negative social media comments.
Although Pollard was a competitive cheer coach for 13 years still people questioned him.
"The number one thing we used to get is ‘Oh you're stunting and you are going to drop your daughter one day’,” Pollard said. “No, I'm not. I'm not going to drop my daughter."
Even though his daughter said it’s not scary Pollard’s parenting came into question when he posted videos of Jayden still doing stunts while crying.
"It doesn't bother me at this point,” Pollard said. “It was very hard at first because I wanted so badly for people to understand, hey you don't know the full picture. You only saw a snippet of that day. You saw 60 seconds of a 30-minute stunt session."
Pollard was able to flip the script on cyberbullies.
"I'm just sitting there reading comments eating popcorn like oh that's a good one,” Pollard said. “Then my views just keep going up and up and up and my follower count. So, a lot of that 6.9 million came from me exploiting others who were sending hate my way."
TikTok’s future is uncertain with Montana becoming the first state to recently ban it.
Roland is watching to see what happens.
"Maybe there are going to be more regulations,” Pollard said. “I don't think it's going to be completely wiped out. I could be 100 percent wrong. If it is wiped out okay adapt. What's next."
As a professional financial advisor, Pollard knows the ups and downs and needs to adapt.
"If TikTok stays legal as long as the platform is up we'll continue to grow but in a different way," Pollard said.
But still in a way that continues to share a beautiful father-daughter relationship that reaches much higher than a cheer stunt and deeper than social media likes.
"I know what it's like to have it up to 100 million views,” Pollard said. “I know what it's like to go viral and have thousands of people follow you a minute. I've already lived that and it's not where my source of joy comes from."
His joy comes from his family.
Pollard is married and he and his wife have two children.
