Tommy Guarino had a stereotypical Boston upbringing, and he’s fully embraced all of it. Not out of pride, per se, but rather as a matter of creative inspiration.
Hailing from East Boston, the 22-year old Guarino still lives in the same triple-decker house that his grandmother bought back in the ‘70s, and when it comes to tradition and idiosyncrasies, growing up in a big Italian family carries much of both. It may sound like the plot to a Mark Wahlberg movie, but it is in fact, Guarino’s reality, and that day-to-day life can be found interwoven in the creative force behind his highly popular TikTok and Instagram videos that touch on everything from what the hold you have on your Dunkin’s cup says about you to the exaggerated but still comically accurate depiction of how Bostonians operate.
Boasting a vast following of his social media content, which has grown from roughly 4,000 followers in the early stages of the pandemic in 2020 to a whopping 1.1 million followers as it stands currently, you’d never guess that Guarino was admittedly never really big with social media before downloading TikTok as a way to pass the time in lockdown.
While he does enjoy poking fun at his fellow commonwealth comrades in his videos, Guarino is quick to acknowledge how being able to just simply make people feel better during their day makes it all worth it, and although he never expected it to get to this level, he’s happy it has, and he’s looking forward to being able to expand, given the fairly low turnout of social media content creation in the city.
“There’s not a social media presence in Massachusetts like there is out in places like Los Angeles, where there are influencers, and it’s more accepted and embraced. Being from Boston, that’s not an occupation you really consider,” Guarino tells Vanyaland. “You’re supposed to go to college, join the union or the military, and there’s nothing wrong with that at all, but that’s why it was, and still is to a certain degree, so tough for me to break through in doing this.”
Guarino’s follower count is representative of people looking for the type of content he puts out, but in a city like Boston, the former UMass Hockey player is still one of a small group of local names in the TikTok lexicon. However, that’s become a continued blessing in disguise for Guarino, who has used the wiggle room to fully flex different aspects of his creativity.
But even as he amasses a fan base as a result of his brash and stereotype-heavy reprisals of Boston-based characters, he’s hoping the open road ahead will allow for more work that truly represents his own personality, as opposed to that of over-protective union boss fathers and hockey house bros, among other topics.
“Obviously if you see my videos, you know I’m playing a character, so with my YouTube channel and my podcast, I really want to display my real personality,” says Guarino. “With ‘man-on-the-street’ stuff, it’s good to kind of play into that Boston character and bring out that big personality, and it would be really cool to do that kind of thing for the Bruins, or the Celtics or Red Sox, but I also want people to get to know me and my real personality.”
Make no mistake, the work is fun, but Guarino takes it seriously, and hopes to keep building from here as he continues to put the work in to make a living doing what he loves to do.
And while he does hope his efforts thus far make way for other opportunities down the road, Guarino isn’t pushing his luck in directions that don’t feel natural to him. For instance, he’s been asked if he’s ever considered getting on stage to do stand-up, but he admits that, as a naturally more introverted person, the thought of getting up in front of people in general is terrifying to him.
Instead, he’d rather focus his energy on his upcoming projects like his podcast Mass Appeal, and maybe even work with the city’s pro sports teams in some capacity, beyond what he’s done so far with NESN partner Dirty Water Media.
Whatever the future holds, Guarino is dead set on making the most of it, and as the positive feedback outweighs the negative reactions to his content and career choice, he knows it could all go away tomorrow, so he’s making the best of it while he has the chance.
“Even if I don’t wind up making it in content creation, I would still be very proud of what I’ve done so far,” says Guarino. “And to be honest, it’s only just beginning, which is the scary part.”