A Bedford TikTok sensation will appear on Channel 4 this Friday (6 May) taking part in Richard Hammond’s Crazy Contraptions – described as ‘TV’s most left-field engineering show’.
The show, which is broadcast at 8pm on Friday, features two teams, competing to build ingenious machines out of everyday objects.
Baz Wright, 55 – aka @my_petrol_emotion – has 657,000 followers on the social media platform. He is joined by two other TikTok content creators as they take on a team of engineering students from Southampton University.
The teams have to create a contraption that will allow Richard Hammond to boil his kettle while he’s on the toilet – think The Great Egg Race [one for our younger readers – Ed] updated for the 21st century.
Baz first began posting on TikTok in May 2020 in the early days of lockdown.
@my_petrol_emotion I love a loop so when a proper looped sound emerges I’m all over it. #mypetrolemotion#videoleap#smoothtransition#styletransition#loop
“I made a few poor lip sync videos to start and then found my niche which is clothing transitions,” he told the Bedford Independent.
Although TikTok appeals to younger people, Baz says that “a throng of parents joined TikTok at the beginning of 2020 [so] the acceptable age bracket for TikTok went up fairly rapidly.
“There are quite a few pensioners that have over a million followers so I’m not even at the top end of the age range.”
Asked about what makes a successful TikTokker, Baz said: “It’s hard to know really. There are so many different content types.
“My only real advice is to be entertaining, engage with anyone who follows you and add value to your content.
“It’s a different platform to others in that you’re almost creating a daily/weekly show and people expect you to show up regularly with content that they subscribed to.”
During filming, Baz said that they built up a friendly rivalry with their competitors, despite the intensity of filming.
“They were all really incredible inspiring people and we got on fantastically. I can’t say how far we got as our episode is only being aired this week but I can say that everyone involved in the filming process from the runners to the producers were incredibly helpful and supportive.”
Asked what the future brings, Baz said he’s hoping to become a full-time content creator.
“I’m also looking for more opportunities to mess around on a film set. It was such a lovely process to be involved with and I’d love to do it again.”
You can tune into Richard Hammond’s Crazy Contraptions every Friday on Channel 4 at 8pm.
