In just under two years, Israel Cortez has become a major social media star best known for his hilarious, relatable content on video-sharing platform TikTok. He currently has an incredible 843,000 followers on the platform and his material has been liked a mind-blowing 66.3 million times (and that number will probably be even higher by the time you’ve finished reading this). Among his trademarks are his many piercings (one of which was got to celebrate his 350,000th follower) and his many POV videos, the most popular of which include his purely visual takes on situations such as “me at a family event”, “me holding the door for an elderly person”, and “me waiting in line for the rollercoaster”.

Cortez was born in October 1997 and lives in Ponoma, California. Although TikTok is the platform he is most well-known on, he is also popular on Instagram where he has over 30,000 followers he regularly shares updates with. In a way, Cortez and others like him are part of a young vanguard of content creators who are taking comedy full-circle back to the silent comedy of a century ago, making audiences laugh purely through facial expressions. It’ll be fascinating to watch how his comedy journey continues.