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If you picture Rachel Berry from “Glee” in New York City instead of Ohio, wearing Lululemon rather than reindeer sweaters, she may look like Chloe Hechter.

A self-proclaimed “jaded ex-theater kid,” Hechter’s first kiss was onstage with a theater boy who broke her heart. She worked at LoveShackFancy in the Hamptons and attended Hebrew school and sleepaway camp every summer.

She knows her character is stereotypical, but takes no offense to that perception.

“I feel like she went to sleep away camp, is still in love with her camp crush, even though she graduated from UMich and lives in Murray Hill now,” Hechter said.

After graduating from Syracuse University in 2023 with degrees in communication and rhetorical studies and writing, Hechter has amassed a following of over 75,000 working as a full-time content creator on TikTok. She writes, acts in and edits skits that centralize an exaggerated, satirical version of herself — videos that frequently go viral and gain millions of views.

“I’ve always wanted to reclaim ‘Jewish American princess,’” Hechter said. “‘Princess’ doesn’t need to mean spoiled. It should mean you’re a woman who holds herself in high regard, demands respect and is smart and funny.”

Hechter’s first viral TikTok was in 2020, a video she filmed using a trending “Wonder Pets!” sound. Sitting in her Booth Hall dorm room, isolated with her roommates because of COVID restrictions, Hechter wrote a caption urging other creators to duet the video if, like her, they appeared on episodes of the children’s show.

The video eventually garnered 3.5 million views.

It wasn’t until this past March that Hechter’s following began growing steadily with consistent viral content. At the start of 2024, she started taking professional content creation seriously. She posted four videos daily and learned the ins and outs of TikTok’s algorithm, curating a niche character that resonated with her audience, she said.

The result was her most-viewed video, a sleepaway camp-inspired skit captioned “POV getting ready for a camp social” with five million views. It came as a surprise to Hechter, who said she never fully knows which videos will resonate and which won’t.

“I think that’s what makes it so much more real,” Hechter said. “I mean, my God, if I knew this was going to get five million views I would’ve put on makeup and straightened my hair.”

Though Hechter’s virality and following are still fairly new to her, writing and acting professionally aren’t. Growing up in NYC as a child actor, Hetcher balanced school with auditions and roles. She attended an arts-focused sleepaway camp, French Woods, every summer from a young age.

There, at age 13, Hechter met her best friend and fellow SU alum Emmy Glick, who graduated from the College of Visual and Performing Arts in musical theater. Glick had a front-row seat for formative moments of Hechter’s childhood — her rise on TikTok, theater romance heartbreak and even had her first kiss in the same musical as Hechter, “13: The Musical.”

Despite her newfound fame, Glick said Hechter has been a creative force since childhood.

“I remember when we went to college, she had a full screenplay and musical written,” Glick said. “She’s always been writing and creating.”

As a Jewish woman and actor, Glick said she’s no stranger to being typecast in stereotypical roles. Though she’s grateful for the roles she’s played and the awareness they have raised, she wishes she had roles like Hechter’s that tap into her broader identity.

“It’s so important to tell these modern stories about the Jewish experience, about what it means to be a girl and have this negative stereotype,” Glick said. “I think it’s amazing what she’s doing to turn it on its head and make it so human.”

Glick said she’s struck by how many comments assume “real-life Chloe” and the satirical character she plays are the same. To Glick, the people labeling her a “mean girl” miss the point of her satire and don’t appreciate the hours Hechter spends writing before she posts her content online.

Other creators have noticed Hechter’s commitment to her craft and the work behind the scenes that goes into producing her content.

Josh Rosen, another TikTok creator with over 170,000 followers, said he’s admired Hechter’s content since a friend shared one of her videos with him last fall. He sent her a message after watching the video, and they’ve been close ever since.

“Something I admire so much about her is her willingness to not give a f*ck about what other people think,” Rosen said.

Like Glick, Rosen said many TikTok users who encounter Hechter’s comedy on their For You page or follow her don’t see the full scope of her personality beneath her character.

It’s a tricky line to toe on a personal platform like TikTok, he said. There’s a divide between character and person, which he said can be difficult for viewers to discern when creators, like Rosen and Hechter, use their lives and personal experiences as content.

Hechter also worries audiences will label her “dumb” because her brand is primarily rooted in satirical, light-hearted skits.

“I hope people don’t think I’m shallow and stupid … I’m writing all of these skits, figuring out the analytics of TikTok and Instagram and utilizing my comedic writing skills,” Hechter said.

Still, Hechter loves her job and is amused to have found her way back to acting, though in an untraditional format. Not long ago, she vowed never to act again.

Hechter attended LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, where she began falling out of love with acting. The environment was competitive and unwelcoming, Hechter recalled, and she didn’t feel her Jewish identity was represented.

When it was time to go to college, Hechter still pursued acting but sought an environment that would be drastically different from her high school, with school spirit and a larger student body.

Believing she found what she wanted at SU, she entered college as an acting major. But it wasn’t long before Hechter realized the program wasn’t making her happy.

Between a failed relationship with another acting major and feeling isolated from the campus community because all her classes were held at Syracuse Stage, Hechter knew she wanted a change.

“I wanted a traditional college experience and I wasn’t having it in the drama program,” Hechter said. “I felt so separate from the community … I didn’t even know what Varsity Pizza was.”

Hechter joined SU’s Alpha Epsilon Phi sorority chapter, changed her major and took a remote University Girl internship, eventually becoming editor-in-chief of UGirl from 2022 to 2023.

Writing became her passion, and acting was a dream she left behind.

“I had such a toxic relationship with acting,” Hechter said. “Between LaGuardia and my freshman year at Syracuse, I wanted to be done forever.”

The irony isn’t lost on Hechter that she’s acting every day in her new career as a TikTok creator. But, she said it’s different now because she’s writing and producing her original content and playing a character she created through her own formative experiences.

Hechter portrays a misrepresented group in the comedy space and is doing what she always dreamed of in her career, she said. She’s healing her relationship with acting and embracing her Jewish identity, without fear of making light of serious moments.

“You can look at my sixth-grade diary. I said, ‘I was born to create representation of Reform Jewish teenage girls,’” Hechter said. “Today I get messages from 13-year-old girls saying ‘Thank you. I relate to your videos so much,’ and I just know I’m doing what I was put on Earth to do.”

Published on December 5, 2024 at 12:32 am