It all started with one post, said Monica Alifantis, a social media influencer and student at Eastern Illinois University.
She downloaded TikTok around 2019 and started making popular content at the time. On a random day one of her videos became popular.
“Right before I got to college, a video blew up,” Alifantis said. “I got like 70,000 [views], not even that much, but I remember being like ‘Oh, this is kind of weird,’ and then I just kept doing it.”
After the first video became popular, she didn’t immediately capitalize on the opportunity and still posted sporadically, she said. Then she started posting more consistently. By around March of 2022, Alifantis was averaging about 10,000 views per video.
College classes, however, were in full swing and she had more than just social media to focus on.
Having inherited a familial love for music and talent from her mother who was a professional singer, Alifantis first enrolled at Eastern as a music major. She even sang opera as a kid. The musical history in her family runs deep. Her grandparents, aunt and brother were music teachers as well as her mother.
At Eastern, however, she quickly felt the demanding schedule of music classes, practices and performances didn’t leave her much time to consider if that was really her passion.
Last fall, Alifantis joined the sorority Delta Zeta after feeling like something was missing in her college experience. She wanted a big group of friends to hang out with and found that Delta Zeta was a great group for that.
“I just felt like that’s the place where I could be myself and not have to worry about if I wouldn’t be liked, if I wouldn’t make friends, if they would think I was weird or something. It felt very natural,” Alifantis said.
Hayley Gregory, a sophomore corporate communications major, is also a member of Delta Zeta and was also in the same pledge class as Alifantis.
During the recruitment process, Gregory and Alifantis spent a lot of time together which brought them closer.
“She has a soft side to her, and it’s really fun when you get to know it, because she does open up and her personality is really fun and really sweet,” Gregory said.
Megan Kozlov, a junior marketing major also in Delta Zeta, and has recently grown close with Alifantis as well.
These friendships helped Alifantis realize her interest in marketing, and she changed her major to public relations.
“I’ve always been really interested in social media, and I wanted to go into marketing,” Alifantis said.
With interests in sports media relations and politics, she is keeping her professional options open, she said and now takes great pride in the account she’s cultivated on her own and with her twin sister, Mira Alifantis.
Monica and Mira Alifantis both have a large following on social media.
Mira Alifantis started a little before Monica Alifantis, but Monica Alifantis now has 250,000 followers across all platforms. Mira Alifantis knew that their being twins made them even more marketable.
On TikTok and Instagram (the apps where they are most active) Monica Alifantis posts fashion, beauty and dancing content. What she promotes the most is health and fitness, she said.
Mira Alifantis attends the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, so the sisters don’t post together as much, but when they do post together, however, they coordinate before pressing the record button.
“When Monica [Alifantis] and I film together, sometimes we like to try and coordinate our outfits just so the video looks more aesthetically pleasing,” Mira Alifantis said. “And then you have to get little angles when you’re recording.”
Sometimes they record ‘get ready with me’ videos, where they record themselves getting ready for the day. They also record videos of themselves working out together.
Both said they have been able to earn money with brand deals and sponsorships from their videos.
Earlier this year, the sisters signed to UnderCurrent Entertainment, an entertainment company based in California and New York. Some of the brands that Monica Alifantis has worked with include Alani Nu and Wrangler.
Monica Alifantis also recently signed with EIU to help promote the school and their apparel to a larger audience.
Despite their success, the siblings said that their family is confused by their whole social media presence.
“They don’t get how we get paid; they don’t get why people want to look at the videos we make; they don’t get why people find it interesting. They don’t get anything,” Mira Alifantis said.
“They think us working with brands is random people sending us things and we’re like ‘No mom, like these are corporations, they have PR people, marketing people who are working with us,” Monica Alifantis said. “Obviously they’re proud of us, but they’re super concerned about our safety because they just don’t understand social media.”
The story of health and fitness for the twins started when they were much younger. When Monica Alifantis was 10 years old, she was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. Mira Alifantis was diagnosed with the same disease almost a year prior.
“From a very young age, we’re very aware of what we were putting into our bodies,” Monica Alifantis said. “And technically we’re disabled, so like under the [Americans with Disabilities Act] we always felt really lucky that we were super tapped into our bodies.”
“We already got each other on such a close level, but then also having that experience just brought us together in a way that we never would have imagined,” Mira Alifantis said.
Monica Alifantis said she and her sister were always athletic, having played travel soccer. Monica Alifantis continued to play in high school. The first time going to the gym was their freshman year of high school at her local fitness, and after that first session, their commitment started.
“We started doing that, and then we got like super into it,” Monica Alifantis said. “We would go like every day, and we were like, ‘Let’s get a gym membership.’ We’ve had a gym membership pretty much ever since then.”
Since those first workout sessions, Monica Alifantis said she has learned a lot. After establishing a routine, she understood which workouts were useful to achieving the specific body-build she was working towards.
During her junior year of high school, she increased the seriousness of her workouts and made the gym a priority in her life, she said. Now, she tries to go about six times per week.
But the sisters aren’t just posting their workouts; they also share the healthy food they cook. And they are doing all with sisterly support.
“My twin sister is like my favorite person on the whole entire planet,” Monica Alifantis said. “She’s my best friend; no one gets me like her. We just get each other.”
Mira Alifantis shares this closeness with Monica Alifantis as well.
Being at separate universities has challenged their relationship, they said
“The one person that I’d always had with me and always counted on for a friendship was not with me anymore,” Mira Alifantis said.
She said that she took that closeness for granted in childhood.
“It was like being always with that best friend and then all of a sudden, you’re not with them anymore,” Mira Alifantis said. “It’s like you almost lose a part of your identity.”
On campus, Monica Alifantis is a part of Panther Prowl, the official EIU student section account. She helps run the Instagram account and promotes Eastern’s students, especially at the live sporting events.
She was a big advocate for high school sports teams, she said, and brought that energy to Eastern.
“I ride for my school,” Monica Alifantis said.
Monica Alifantis’ main piece of advice for working out is to just go do.
“You don’t need to go run six miles, or lift the heaviest weight you can, but create a workout plan that is sustainable and doable every day for you,” she said.
Like in posting, another key factor is being consistent about your workout regime. She advises going about four times a week.
Things take time, Monica Alifantis said, and people will learn what works best for them. In the long run, she said, results will come if the work is put in.
Cam’ron Hardy can be reached at 581-2812 or at cahardy@eiu.edu.
