Holly Wolf on Crafting a Legacy: How Passion and Patience Built Her Social Media Empire
By Ansa Woo
In a world of fast paced trend cycles, and moonshot stories of overnight success, gamer, model and cosplayer, Holly Wolf has been and will always be playing the long game. Wolf isn’t afraid to say how much work she has put into building her flourishing social media queendom.
“I’ve been working since I was 15 years old. For a decent while since then, I’ve held at least two to three jobs at a time. As soon as I started social media, I was still working other jobs obviously for years before I was able to do my creative work full time.”
More often than not, your typical social media star is quick to create iterations of trends. Perhaps you even anticipate seeing certain types of content based on that new thing taking over your feed. Be it a dance routine, a certain audio/ or song- we tend to expect our favorite creators to well, create, and put their own spin on things.
Holly Wolf is proudly, not an overnight viral social media sensation. She has been and will continue to, “play the long game.” I sat with Ms. Wolf and am refreshed by her take on things in a world where we expect everything from our coffee to our Amazon packages to be instant/ overnight, at our fingertips and free.
Holly purposefully caters to a niche crowd. If you happen to be involved in the world of gaming and cosplay, I’m willing to bet highly you have seen her on your pinterest feed as Zelda.
Wolf’s modus operandi is to always remain true to herself, and to only work on projects which make her heart sing. Through the eyes of Holly this could mean, waiting over a year for a specific custom wig maker to bring a cosplay piece to life or favoring flying to specific locations and shooting with hand picked photographers rather than using AI. “I try to be as authentic to myself as I possibly can, and hope that it comes across to everyone online. I love to interact with people and just share what I’m passionate about. And luckily for the most part, I’ve found the right people who I really adore.” The right people have followed Holly from cosplay/gaming spaces to all of her other endeavors which cover vastly different territories such as home renovation and shopping. Holly credits her success to building a strong community who loves her for who she is. Through this, her followers are down for any realm she decides to conquer.
When I asked what gives her the courage to wear flesh toned, latex body suits and publicly document her personal home improvement escapades, she replied matter of fact, “I love to be productive, I love to execute things”. It was never actually about building courage. The end product is what Wolf is after.
This mindset must have something to it. Holly’s small empire boasts 731K followers on YouTube, 264K followers on Instagram and 737.6 likes on TikTok granting her the very coveted status of macro- influencer, also known as a power spot for models. Differing from mega- influencers with +1 million followers, the number of followers the macro- influencer has are still small enough for its crowd to be incredibly loyal yet big enough to bag large, well known and perhaps global campaigns or accreditation such as a featured spot with Playboy (which yes, Holly has done.)
We have just a few minutes left together, and as if on cue her dog boops the studio door open and wags on in. I’m thrown out of our conversation and as I settle back in, I notice the violet neon lights she has up spell out, “WOLF”. Their glow reflects off her ice blonde hair. I mentally note how her look gives a very Blade Runner, video game heroine quality. Subtract all of this and I think it’s her intense gaze that sells this theme. You could cut the lights or change her hair and it would still be the same. I circle back on a classic question, what advice would you give to anyone who wants to be like you and do what you do? I just know she’s going to touch on the tough love theme we discussed right from the start. She does, but with a softer, more warm take than what I expected, “Listen, I love what I do. I absolutely adore what I do. But understand, it has taken me a while to get to where I am. Do what you can, it’s not always as much as you want to do. And make it steady. A slow but steady and deliberate rise is a strong one. Especially with social media, understand what you create will ultimately be there forever. If you really understand this, I think it will pay off in the end.”
