Alberta grandmother Jenny Krupa is taking TikTok by storm

On Monday evening, Skylar Krupa, 19, crossed the yard to his grandmother's house in Thorhild, Alta., north of Edmonton.

His grandmother, Jenny Krupa, was sitting at a table in the kitchen scratching lottery tickets.

"Baba," he called, using the Ukrainian name for grandmother,"we are going to make a video."

Krupa was used to her grandson coming overalmost dailyto film videos for theTikTok account he created for her, called Its_J_Dog.

Teasingher grandson, shefakeda fussbefore agreeing.

"Oh, OK, fine!" she said, slappingher lottery tickets downbefore laughing.

TikTok is a video-sharing applaunched in 2017thatblew up in popularity over the last year. The app surpassed 1.5 billion downloads in November 2019, according to Sensor Tower, an app analytic site.

Krupa'sTikTok account, which her grandson created in August last year, has more than 774,000 followers and millions of likes. The videos either feature her following popular TikTok lip-syncs and challenges, or portrayher as a sassy grandmother with zero chill.

Her profile reads, "I'm 88 and probably have more followers than you."

Krupamaintains she's only 87.

Lip syncs take the longest

TikTok videos are usually 15 seconds to a minute long, but ittakesSkylar Krupa between five and 30 minutes to create them. Lip syncs take the longest, he said.

"It's very hard for her to say the words at the exact same time as the audio," he said."I'll tell her the words at the same speed that the audio says it and I'll get her to say it with me."

Krupa films almost every day. Tuesdays, he said, are a day that videos rarely go viral.

Jenny Krupa is sometimes joined in the videos by her husband Mike.

Krupa has lived next door to his Gido, the Ukrainian nickname for grandfather, and Baba his entire life. Their houses share the same yard.

Krupa started filming his grandmother forSnapchatin 2013 but decided to start a TikTok account for his grandmother last summer. He thought it would be different enough to do well in a platformsaturated with teenagers.

'Decent amount of money'

At first, the account was private but at the end of August, he accidentallypostedavideo publicly and it quickly received thousands of likes. "I thought it was wild," he remembers.

Seeing how popular his Baba's videos were, he decided to keep the profile public and post content more frequently.

Although TikTok is not as lucrativeas Instagram or YouTube, Krupa says sees potential to make "a decent amount of money a month."

Companies or artists who want to promote content or songs reach out to popular TikTok creators. Since October, requests have steadilyincreased up to two or three per day.

Krupa charges $25 per 25,000followers. So the more followers he has, the more money he earns.

Although his grandmotheris nowaware of her digital popularity,during the first few months she didn't seem to care, he said.

"At first I would tell her, 'Oh, a video just got five million views' and she'd be like, 'OK. I'm going to bingo now.'"