Victor Kunda launched his career without saying a word. Using a breadstick as a cigarette, the 23-year-old posted a silent impression of smokers in the smoking area to TikTok, and came back to the app three days later to 10,000 followers. “I was like, right, let’s see where this can take us,” he says over Zoom with a smile. “And here we are.” His following has now exploded to half a million – with close to a billion views for his videos – all there for his hilarious, polyvocal impressions that manage to be both razor-sharp and totally ridiculous. Bella Hadid is among them, and he has another fan in Doja Cat, who recently posted his parody video to her 22 million Instagram followers, and expressed her approval for a video of him dancing to the sound of his mother praying and speaking in tongues, “because it was just hella rhythmic”, he says.
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It’s not just his absurd humour that has gotten him noticed. His good looks and personal style have also seen him compared to the likes of Damson Idris and Lil Nas X. The “Call Me By Your Name” singer even retweeted the images with a quip acknowledging their similarities. “First of all the fact that I’m being compared to, you know, just two absolute drops of chocolate from heaven – that was enough for me,” Kunda says, switching into a generic-white-girl-at-brunch accent midway through. But the acknowledgement of Lil Nas X himself blew his mind, he admits. “I guess this is it. This is all I needed. My time on earth is done.”
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As for the fashion world, Kunda attended the Yohji Yamamoto and Ludovic de Saint Sernin shows in Paris; Labrum was his first in London, and he ended the autumn/winter 2022 season attending Burberry, dressed head-to-toe by the brand. When taken into their showroom, he was guided to “the look Riccardo [Tisci] wanted you in”, he recalls being told by the team. “Only a few people are wearing skirts from the new collection, and he wanted you as one of them.” He joined his friend Amelia Dimoldenberg at the main table inside the venue. “All of a sudden, Kate Moss is on the other side of the table! All of a sudden, Anna Wintour! Jacob [Elordi] from Euphoria is, like, two legs down for me. I was like, ‘Guys, are we on the right table?’”
But his story isn’t one of overnight success. “A lot of people don’t know that I actually started content creation in 2016,” he says. “I was posting small sketches on Facebook for, like, my 41 friends.” As the class clown at school and a performing arts lover (“I definitely want to be an actor”), he tried YouTube until he got self-conscious, and switched focus to a career behind the camera, studying media production at university. There, he learned how to edit, write, and produce, but “there was just this burning desire to put something out into the world because all my friends were telling me, Victor, you have all of this talent and all these ideas. But where’s it going?” Posting skits to Instagram and Twitter first, he was encouraged to try TikTok. “Everyone was like, post on TikTok, you will go viral!” he recalls. “That’s where I went wrong, because I started with that mindset. I didn’t go viral. I realised you actually have to work for this.” It took about 20 attempts, posting irregularly over many months, until his profile took off.
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Though his circumstances have changed, Kunda hasn’t. “Honestly, I could have all the following in the world, but I’m Victor from Lewisham, you know? Who still lives with his mum and his brother,” he says. “My managers get angry at me because they want me to see myself as more than I do, but I literally, physically, can’t, because in this vast world, who am I?” he says. “When the world ends, Mother Nature isn’t going to be like,” he switches into a friendly corporate voice, picking up a pair of jeans with each name, “you know what, I’m gonna save you Rihanna. I’m gonna save you Victor, I’m gonna save you Beyoncé.” And recognition is not what fulfills him the most. “I’m just glad I’m making the contribution I am to making people happy, making them laugh, and helping them through what I can.”
