Falak Zaman: Perth teenage TikTok star wins hearts showing life with cerebral palsy

To be a TikTok star you usually need smooth dance moves, have a deft hand for doing glamorous make-up, or be good at creating quirky clips of yourself lip-syncing to songs. But one Perth teenager has melted the hearts of millions of viewers just by taking a single step off her front porch. Fifteen-year-old Falak Zaman of Morley has not gained her half-a-million followers on TikTok or had her posts go viral by choreographing funny videos, posing in fashionable threads or baking elaborate cakes. Falak, who has cerebral palsy and spends a lot of her time in a wheelchair, has gained her 541,400 followers simply by filming her life and everyday achievements. One viral video of her challenging herself to step off her porch has been viewed 13.7 million times. None of her videos are choreographed but are instead filmed impromptu by her mother, Tanzia, around their house. There are videos of Falak in her pyjamas tackling climbing upstairs or with her hair in a messy ponytail and wearing comfy tights and a T-shirt having a go at washing up the dishes. “Why don’t you just use the dishwasher?” her mother asks her. “Because today is your birthday and because I wanted to make you happy I decided this would be your birthday present,” Falak replies. Ms Zaman said now when they go out they are invariably approached by someone who says, “You’re the TikTok girl, right?” “They come and say hello to us and talk in places like IKEA, DFO, schools, restaurants, shopping malls, Coles, Kmart, in parking lots,” Ms Zaman said. For Falak, TikTok fame has come as a shock. “I feel I’m loved, encouraged and I have my own identity now. No, I never thought my videos would be loved by so many people,” she said. Falak’s TikTok videos are rapidly climbing the popularity ladder. Her 571,600 followers, as of last night, put the teen well within the top 140 TikTokkers in Australia out of the 2.5 million users nationwide. According to the website TikTokBlade.com (which is not associated with TikTok), the top TikTokker in Australia is fellow Perth girl Hannah Balanay, @thexhan, who, in a bucket hat and tracksuit, has danced her way to 16.6 million followers. TikTok said it doesn’t comment on rankings, but a spokeswoman said: “Falak is a very popular local creator and it’s fantastic to see that her inspiring TikTok videos and accomplishments have seen her find hundreds of thousands of followers amongst our community from around the world.” Falak began using TikTok two years ago as a way to improve her speech and reduce her stutter. “We thought this might help her to speak more smoothly and it did actually help her speech,” Ms Zaman said “She was able to talk more confidently and much better while making her videos.” Falak is joined in many videos by a cute sidekick, her two-year-old sister Alaina, who shares her account. “As we kept making videos a lot of people used to cheer her with their positive comments,” Ms Zaman said. Now their phones are constantly beeping with notifications of likes and comments. “I have to mute notifications as it keeps ringing all day and night,” Ms Zaman said. They have found her followers are increasing by a minimum of 5000 a day and sometimes up to 20,000 overnight. For Falak, her virtual cheer squad inspires her to keep challenging herself to achieve the everyday physical tasks that most of us take for granted. “Every comment matters and takes me to the next level,” she said.