Brookton farmhand goes viral on Tik Tok with videos showing life on the land

If you told Brookton farmhand Mandy Matthews a video she took of her kelpie-border collie cross Blue jumping a fence would go viral, she would not have believed you. But 5.4 million views later, the video — which she posted to TikTok in July — has catapulted the New Zealand-born agricultural worker into social media stardom and given her a platform to share agriculture with the world. “It was a bit surprising,” she said. “It just started as having a bit of fun ... the reason I started taking all these pictures and videos is we see some pretty awesome stuff out here that a lot of people don’t get to see. And people were interested, with her account @missrae93 — where she posts fun and educational videos of day to day life on the farm, from shearing and herding sheep to sunsets and Blue’s antics — now boasting more than 91,000 followers and 2.7 million likes. It has put Ms Matthews — who recently undertook the Livestock Collective’s Livestock Leaders program — in a position to educate people, particularly the young, about life on the land. It is not the only social media platform she has rocketed on, with a compilation video of Blue she posted on Instagram a fortnight ago of him jumping on hay bales, over fences and working with the flock proving wildly popular. In a day, she got 7000 extra followers. Within a week, she went from 1200 to almost 14,000 followers. The “overwhelming” reaction has not been without its hurdles, with Ms Matthews receiving some negative comments among the positives, on topics such as mulesing, which has prompted her to provide detailed explanations and context on topics to educate her audience. “We need to show what we do more in the industry,” she said. It has also seen a wave of interest in her work, with people from all over the world contacting her for advice on how to get into the industry, which she hoped would result in more young women getting into agriculture. “There’s quite a lot of young girls that follow me and if they can see that there’s a girl out there doing this work without any worries, that might encourage them to get into the industry,” Ms Matthews said.