Oh, Mama Tot. What have you gotten yourself into?
Beloved TikTok star “Mama Tot” got into hot water when she began to talk about hurricane relief. The influencer who preaches about kindness and joy is facing backlash for comments she made about FEMA relief and how people were going to get it in time to help them.
Ophelia Nichol is known as “Mama Tot” to her fans, the “Tater Tots.” She uses her platform of nearly 13 million followers to put positivity into the world but her comments on relief for those in the path of the recent boom of hurricanes left many calling her out for misinformation. Nichol donated some of her own money to relief but her comments still had many questioning her.
On October 3, she posted a video about the aftermath of Hurricane Helene (prior to Hurricane Milton making landfall). In it, she expressed her concern for those effected. “They have lost everything. Everything. Imagine walking outside of your house and seeing nothing that you ever worked hard for, just gone.”
She went on to question how those without electricity were supposed to ask for aid. “How are they supposed to apply for stuff, then, if they don’t have electricity? That does not get their babies fed in this moment, like. The job they had, the building is gone. Like, how is nobody mad?” she said. The comments on the video are now off but people online have talked about how Nichol was sharing misinformation about FEMA to her followers.
The reality is that she should have known better about talking about government policies without having all her facts.
Others thought her comments made it seem as if she was a support of Donald Trump. The misinformation in her post and then Mama Tot’s lack of acknowledging it forcing fans to question her.
Mama Tot responded
Her original video about the backlash added fuel to the fire. In it, she talked about how she doesn’t get into politics on the app because people just talk over each other about them, which made her fans upset with her. She went on to talk about how she didn’t say anything specifically about FEMA in the post (but still talked about relief).
“In that video, I never said anything about politics, FEMA, money, the government, presidents, never said anything about those things,” she said. “None of that. I just expressed just how frustrating and sad and angry I was that they gotta go through this.”
This video also got backlash for her comments on politics. It added fuel to the growing fire saying that she was a Trump supporter. Finally, trans activist Mercury Stardust posted a video pleading with Mama Tot to help her understand. In the second video, Nichol thanked Mercury Stardust for talking to her in this way and helping her understand.
In the video, she stated that she thought it was clear that she would not vote for someone like Donald Trump. “I never thought that I would ever have to say that I didn’t vote for Trump. I thought people just knew that by my actions.” Since, Mama Tot has continued to post resources for hurricane relief.
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