Etay Beaton is a second-year marketing student at Humber Polytechnic was born and raised in Toronto, but he is known in the Humber community as TikTok influencer “Lotion Guy.”
He's a regular on social media, where he discusses different or various topics or subjects while rubbing lotion on his hands.
Beaton said his career started after reaching 50,000 followers and being banned, but he still wanted to voice his opinions on social media.
“During the summertime, I went to an event called Afrofest, and something tragic happened," the business marketing student said.
"I think it was a 17-year-old boy that passed away. I wanted to voice my opinion on it and how Toronto has become very dangerous," Beaton said. "And then I posted about it, and then it blew up. It got like 800,000 views, so I was like, okay, since I have like a voice that's influencing.”
But he wanted a change of pace. He didn’t feel comfortable talking about the bad and the negative of Toronto, so he had a change of plans in content.
“Until I realized, I don't really want to associate myself with all the bad crime, all the stuff that's going on with Toronto," Beaton said.
"So, I was like, why don't I just post about myself and relatable things that we all go through. And during that time, I would also apply lotion on my hands. It happened one time. My hands were drying in the video, so I was like, let me just kill two stones with two birds with one stone,” he said.
He is also very grateful and happy with the influence that he has in the Humber community.
"Well, I'm humble, so I'm not going to say a lot," Beaton said. "There's been a lot of people that have recognized me. Even today, I was as I was walking to this meeting, I've had like three people stop me and be like, 'Hey, you're the lotion guy.' But it's really a privilege."
