'I've turned my passion for Disney and Taylor Swift into a living': Meet influencer Vinny Thomas
If you haven’t come across a video online by Vinny Thomas AKA MrThomasEnglish, where have you been?
The Brit influencer, 30, who is originally from Grays, Essex, and moved to the US in 2018, has been taking the internet by storm thanks to his prolific content output and larger-than-life personality.
Thomas, who currently lives in Arizona, found his true calling during the Covid-19 pandemic and hasn’t looked back after discovering he could make more money than his original day job as a teacher.
Initially starting out by uploading humorous videos pointing out the differences between British and American culture, he then expanded by creating Little Britain-style sketches featuring a rotating cast of colourful characters all played by himself.
Growing up, Thomas says he was bullied at school for liking Disney and Taylor Swift. Now, he has found a captive audience online who not only accept him, they encourage him to keep making videos.
From following his quests to complete blind box collections, to watching him howl with laughter at his attempts to dress up both himself and his loyal dog Waffles as cartoon characters, his followers are all in.
Speaking to the Standard via Zoom, Thomas - who says he was “not popular at school” and describes himself as having been “shy, timid and overweight” - can’t quite believe how he got here himself.
“I grew up on a council estate in England and now I'm living in America with like, I think combined it's over 5,000,000 followers across platforms. To me, that is just absolutely unheard of where I grew up to have that,” he said
Acknowledging his privileged position now and the opportunities that he has had as a result, he says he’s determined to not let it go to his head and “be sensible”.
“I don’t need to move to LA and buy a massive house and have no money or anything like that,” he explains, adding that his goal in all of it has been to “just really be like do what you do and [what] brings you joy”.
Despite the many positive comments that he receives, Thomas - who is married to Ashley, a teacher and influencer in her own right - has come up against a number of trolls in his time.
“When I first ever mentioned my wife, people were like, ‘you're a grown man that dressed up as Disney Princess, there is no way you can be married to a woman! You are gay’.
“There was this absolute onslaught of hate and I was like, ‘I have never experienced this to this degree’.
“There was a while where I was like ‘Oh well, I always have such a positive reception, do I even want to integrate this part of my life into my videos?’ Then, the longer I've been doing it, the more I just don't care.
“At the end of the day, my wife likes appearing in my videos sometimes, but I'm also not a couples account.
“It's nice to be able to show people that have followed me for a while that part of my life and to show to others that I can be a man married to a woman and still dress up like a Disney Princess.”
Not everyone online is hateful and some have even written to thank him saying his videos have helped them.
“I get a lot of messages from parents, especially of young boys that are like ‘my son used to dress up like Elsa and got bullied for her being his favourite character, but I showed him your videos,’” he explained.“If you want to dress up as Elsa, Ariel, Moana, or whoever, it doesn't mean you're anything. You don't even know what you are yet; you're a child, like, it's fine.”
Adding: “Messages like that just drive me to keep doing it. The goal of my content is to bring joy and inspire people to authentically be themselves regardless of anyone's opinion of that.”
We couldn’t resist asking how much he actually spends on blind boxes a month.
“I would say at least probably about $300 to $400 a month goes on blind boxes,” he responded.
“I've had questions from people being like, ‘oh wow, you spent $100 on, you know, getting 10 items for this video’. And I'm like, ‘yeah, but that video on TikTock alone made $200. And then it made x amount on YouTube, x amount on Instagram and Facebook...”
“And, if, say for instance, I'm doing Disney pins, I'll then compile them into a long form video, which I'll then put on Facebook. That would then be monetized again on YouTube.
“So you're putting $100 into it, but then you're getting like five times that back and it's just the business side of it, of how you do it.
“I find it very interesting to break it down because I feel like when I used to watch videos online, I too would think ‘how can they afford this?’ But it's because they're investing the money in the video, making money back from the video, and then whatever expenses you've put into that video then comes out of your overall profit of it.”
In future, Thomas says he’s keen to do more work with brands and would love to get into interviewing, especially at red carpet events, so watch this space.
There will be plenty more content for the Swifties too as he will be heading to Taylor’s Eras Tour at Wembley in August.
You can find out more about Vinny Thomas and follow his exploits on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and TikTok.
