Dyatlov Pass TikTok Success

John Allen shares how his first viral success came from telling the mysterious Dyatlov Pass story on TikTok.

"I was at this water park in Pennsylvania, this indoor water park with my wife and kids. On a whim, I decided to shoot a quick 62-second video about the Dyatlov Pass.

The Dyatlov Pass is this famous mystery about hikers in the 1950s who went missing in the Ural Mountains. They were very experienced hikers who disappeared and then were found dead. Their campsite was desecrated, they were wearing each other's clothes, body parts were missing, and they were radioactive. One person was tucked up in a tree with scratch marks at the base. That same night, there was a Soviet military movement happening, and someone in charge reported seeing mysterious lights flashing over that section of the mountain.

I filmed the story in my hotel room and left my phone there because we were going down to the water park. When we came back a couple hours later, I couldn't even open my phone - there were so many notifications pouring in. The video had over 5 million views in just a few hours.

After that, I went into this feverish state of constantly telling stories on TikTok - three a day for 30 days. We got up to about 7 million subscribers on TikTok, then shifted to YouTube, and here we are."