TikTok awards: Thep00lguy, Nicholas Flannery and Kyra-Mae among winners

A man who creates oddly satisfying pool cleaning videos, a travel duo on the hunt for a Mr Whippy that costs 99p and a woman who makes homemade pickles are among the winners of the UK and Ireland’s first TikTok awards.

On Tuesday evening, 72 shortlisted content creators – who have a combined follower count of more than 101m – attended an awards ceremony celebrating creators across 12 categories including fashion, travel, food and education.

The event in west London was everything you imagine an awards ceremony for the chronically online to be like. There were endless photo opportunities, more ring lights than people – and some creators seen refreshing their follower accounts during the ceremony.

Those who won awards told the BBC about how they rose to stardom on the video platform, and expressed their views on whether short social media videos were contributing to “brain rot” – the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental state due to over-consumption of low-quality or unchallenging online content.

“My life changed just from pickling a cucumber,” Maddi Neye-Swift told the BBC as she picked up her award for food creator of the year.

“I was unemployed and I started a series of things I cook while I’m unemployed and this random video of me pickling a cucumber just took off.

“Overnight it got 10 million views, it was crazy.”

The worst food crime according to a food content creator? “Nutella and cheese is pretty gross.”

Maddi said she “was always nervous about posting videos” of herself. While many of these creators ooze confidence, many others share Maddi’s feelings.

Katie Kennedy – thehistorygossip on TikTok – said that when she first started posting videos, she “blocked my friends, family and everyone I knew because I was so embarrassed”.

Now she’s more proud of her work educating people about history and says her job is “rewarding”.