PJ “Overtflow” Brittain, 29, is one of the more influential TikTokers with 1.7 million followers on the popular social media platform. The gamer, who is known for posting Fortnite and Call of Duty content to his TikTok channel @overtflow, says the app’s potential US ban could be “devastating” to “tens of thousands” of creators. HollywoodLife spoke EXCLUSIVELY with Overtflow to share his feelings on the potential ban after Donald Trump issued executive orders on Aug. 6 that would restrict TikTok from operating in the US if they were not sold by its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to a US-based firm by September 15.
“As far as the potential ban I think it’s a scary thing,” he said. “I know for a fact that there’s probably 10,000 creators using Tiktok full-time, along with thousands of USA-based TikTok employees and that would be putting all of those guys out of a job, which would be horrifying for them. For influencers, like 90 percent of my income comes from TikTok and brand deals that I have through that so for me it would definitely be a devastating thing.”
Trump has been against any Chinese owned social media apps in the US marketplace, fearing national security concerns. But Overtflow explained, “You know, every app collects data, every app tracks what you do, every app sees what you’re interested in, so that they can serve you ads, so that they can serve you more personalized stuff, and more personalized videos, more personalized ads. Every app on your phone does this so I think that TikTok is no different in that sense.”
As for rumors of Microsoft possibly considering the app purchase, the gamer said, “Obviously if we get to keep Tiktok around that would be awesome, but it would be scary because you don’t know what another company is going to do, right?” Overflow said. “As of right now, TikTok is a perfectly run app and I think that it’s such a fair app. If you make something that’s watchable and a consumable piece of content, then it’s going to get spread around and get a lot of views. With other platforms, it’s almost like they have this politics game where you need a lot of followers first before they’ll promote you. You need a million followers for your videos to go viral and TikTok is something that gives everybody the chance to go viral.”
Meanwhile, Overtflow is not only a gamer, but also a brown belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and fought FaZe Sensei on the Logan Paul vs KSI undercard in Aug. 2018. So he has several other plans in the works and won’t be disappearing from the limelight anytime soon regardless if the ban happens or not. The social media star discussed his plans for creating an MMA scene for influencers.
“I think there’s such an opportunity to create an MMA-based league,” he explained. “I’ve actually spoken with FaZe Sensei about potentially putting together our own MMA tournament and I know guys like Logan Paul would definitely be interested. He has a huge background in wrestling so I think he’d do amazing in MMA. I would be surprised if he doesn’t have a match in the UFC by the time his career is done. I think there’s a huge window of space to dive through for the MMA games and I think the guys like myself and FaZe Sensei would end up coming out on top of that.”
He’s also in talks for a “gaming version” of Hype House. “I actually had a [gaming] house in Las Vegas last year and we did somewhere in the ballpark of 400 million views in six months. And this was before I had a ton of followers on TikTok. Right now I am in talks with a bunch of people. Myself and one of the original founders of FaZe, the FaZe CLipZ guys are probably going to head up the house. We’re talking to sponsors and we have a ton of deals being put into place for a mini reality show.”
“Behind the scenes stuff, along with the usual streams of YouTube and TikTok content. If we get this house put together, picture Hype House except the gaming version or similar to what FaZe Clan did with their YouTube gaming houses,” he added. “We have about seven or eight guys that are extremely interested in being part of this house and they all have approximately between one and seven million followers. I’m going to get all the biggest TikTok gamers and put them all in one spot.”