A grandmother from Newton Heath has gone viral on TikTok for her infectious laugh, ‘bonkers’ personality and for losing her glasses.
Kathleen Hope, 82, has racked up an impressive 1.3 million views on a TikTok of her losing her glasses, wondering if they had been pinched. The whole time, said glasses were perched on her head.
However, this is not the first time the Mancunian grandmother has received views and positive praise on the platform. One of the first videos, shared by Kathleen’s daughter Jakki, 49, amassed almost 500,000 views since it was shared back in March.
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Despite not understanding the platform, Kathleen is happy that the videos bring joy to those watching. She said: “I’ve never been on the internet, I don’t know what it is, what is it?”
Jakki said: “It’s absolutely unbelievable, none of us can stop laughing at her. I don’t think she really understands about the internet, you know her generation. We keep showing her the videos and she’s laughing her head off at them and all that. She’s had a load of birthday cards come through and she’s loved that.
"People kept saying they wanted to send gifts and she said that all she wants is cards, people to send her cards so she knows people are out there and care."
Today, May 17, is Kathleen’s 83rd birthday and her fans have been sending birthday cards in droves.
“We’ve probably had about three negative comments, but people say they love her, that she reminds them of their gran or their mum," Jakki said. There’s so much love for her, it’s really overwhelming some of the lovely comments that has been said about her.
“Everybody’s took her by heart. Saying she’s a legend, saying she should be on Gogglebox, but it would just be bleep bleep bleep with her!”
The family started making videos of Kathleen after a friend was diagnosed with cancer and wanted cheering up. After getting a laugh out of Kathleen's cheeriness - and bad language - it was suggested to Jakki that she shared the videos of TikTok to reach a wider audience.
“It all started off because my friend has got terminal cancer and it all started with her doing some videos of my mum with a budgie to try and cheer my friend up. Then they went on Facebook and everyone's saying 'you need to get your mum on TikTok' and I've never heard of TikTok.
"My daughter set it all up, and one video got nearly qurater of million views and that was one with the budgie. Now the one with the glasses has just gone absolutely mental."
The now famous glasses video has more than 1,500 commenters, with one commenter, amandasarahanne saying: "I love her, she's hilarious!" Meanwhile another commenter, tonyyoules said: "She needs her own TV show... brilliant. Love her heart."
Kathleen didn't have an easy life and was a single mum with two children to bring up after their dad left. However, she is very positive and believes strongly in the power of laughter.
Jakki explained: "She said the other day, you're happy if you're making people smile. She'd rather have laughter because she's cried a lot in her life. If she can bring a smile to people's face, the amount of people who've said she's brought them out of a dark place and stuff like that. If she knows she can do that for someone then she's happy."
Kathleen added: "I'd rather have people laughing than crying. I don't make them, it's just me living my life because I've had that much horrible things, I've brought my girls up myself and I've got a lovely big family now with babies and everything and it's wonderful."
Jakki added as well that her mother does not have dementia, after a few comments on the videos expressed worry for Kathleen. Instead, Jakki explained that they are a family who have always had banter and that her mother is in fact 'the biggest wind-up merchant'.
She said: "She's just none stop with her wit, so what you see there is just us having a chuckle. She’s gone into a care home and it’s given her a new lease of life. The staff are amazing. She absolutely loves it."
If you wish to send a birthday card to Kathleen, a friend of the family is accepting them at her flower shop: Flowers by Sarah Jayne, which can be found at 14 Middleton Road, Royton, Oldham OL2 5PA.
