In a corner of social media known as #CleanTok, some people’s "declutter with me" vlogs and ASMR household wash downs have turned them into full-time content creators.
Welcome to #TradesTok, an interview series where design-related content creators share what goes into building their online and IRL businesses.
For Rochelle Stewart, known online as @operation_niki, a typical Costco outing ends with removing everything from her refrigerator, wiping clean every glass shelf, and sometimes steaming and vacuuming corners and drawers before restocking its contents. Nothing goes into the refrigerator without itself being cleaned: all produce is washed and placed in clear containers, juices are decanted and labeled, deli meats and cheeses are unpackaged and placed in trays. The resulting fridge looks less like where one keeps food and more like a gourmet grocer display. Naturally, she films each step and edits the process down into one-minute-and-30-seconds-long "Costco haul" clips that get between 10 and 50 million views on TikTok.
Stewart is a creator on #CleanTok, a corner of social media that fuses vicarious ASMR tidying with janitorial education, with extreme and satisfying makeovers tossed between. A former IT analyst in Nashville, Stewart started posting on TikTok in 2021 while working remotely with her virtually schooling kids. "It was a hobby initially, something to maybe connect with other people that were interested in the same things," she says. In less than a year, Stewart left her job to create cleaning and organizing videos (as well as cooking and self-care content) full-time. She now has upward of 16 million followers across TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube and has partnered with brands like Ninja, Shark, Swiffer, and Tide.
CleanTok has become a 2020s social media staple representing modern domestic bliss, and, just as there are countless spaces to clean in a house, each with their own suite of approaches and tools for tackling, the genre’s content creators and their videos are equally varied. Some focus on visually appealing ASMR clips; close-ups of sudsy scrubdowns or surface steam cleans (with bios like "Your ASMArtha Stewart"). Others post organizational inspiration or vlog-style "restocks" and "resets." There are also professional house cleaners who film their processes for social media and at least one cleanfluencer who takes on dramatic before-and-after overhauls of hoarding environments. Almost all of them dip in and out of marketing the cleaning products they use on their feeds via sponsored posts or ShopMy links.
Carly Castro, aka @cleanwithcarly, describes herself as "the Wendy Williams of cleaning." Castro’s parents were cleaners and, while she had her own cleaning business for a period, she transitioned into full-time content creating in late 2025 following the success of her blunt approach to CleanTok. Her videos range from reacting to viral cleaning hacks, sharing gossip while tidying spaces, and skits about the reality of being a cleaner, which she films in her Denver home. "The main comment I get is, ‘Finally, a cleaner that’s honest,’" says Castro, who has over 600,000 followers across social media and is a spokesperson for the cleaning products brand OdoBan. Brandon Pleshek, the Wisconsin creator behind @cleanthatup, also comes from a family of janitors. He started making videos in 2020 while working full-time for his family’s cleaning business. "I hit a wave on TikTok where there were not only a ton of people watching because of the pandemic but so many people were conscious about keeping things clean," he says. "I still don’t believe that it turned into seven million followers across platforms."
As with any social media genre, a common critique of CleanTok content is that it’s performative, more aesthetically minded than functional, and that it pushes a particularly consumerist vision of clean and tidiness. "A lot of CleanTok is not real," Castro says. "People do the aesthetic of a new home—but that’s not real life for a lot of us. The other half is rage bait, where you know it’s a manufactured mess."
We talked to five CleanTok creators about how they started cleanfluencing and the nitty-gritty that goes into making their videos. Our conversations have been edited and condensed for clarity.
Rochelle Stewart
@operation_niki, 7.6M followers on TikTok and 5.5M followers on Instagram
On starting her TikTok
I’ve always loved cleaning and organizing. I think it started off as a coping mechanism, because I was bullied as a child. I loved to go into my room, reorganize it, redecorate it, take everything out, and put it back in. It was my pastime, and it was very therapeutic for me.
I’ve been working as a content creator since late 2022. Before, I worked from home, so I was doing it at the same time. It was hard: I had a two-year-old at home and two bigger kids who were virtually learning. I wanted to do something for myself. I was going to make this content regardless, but what I think helped it skyrocket is the time I decided to do it. People needed a pastime, that was the first thing. The second thing was people were very, very, very conscious of cleanliness because of what was happening in the world. It was a perfect storm for me to become successful.
On what goes into making her CleanTok videos
It takes hours. I can film around three hours of content for a normal video. That’s just: Record, stop. Record, stop. There’s a bunch of different angles that I like to film, and once I’m done, it takes a few hours to edit. I would say it takes about 12 hours total. I do everything myself—but I’m looking for an editor currently because I’m burnt out.
On planning her content
I’m just doing me on camera. It’s not like I have to think that hard about, what’s the next video gonna be? I’m just gonna do what I would do anyway. I need to clean my bathroom—let me clean my bathroom. I don’t want to be too repetitive; I try to switch things up, but other than that, it comes to me pretty easily.
On the associated costs
Is there a ton of overhead? No. That’s the beautiful thing about this type of content: You can make do with what you have. If you want to do the extra stuff, you can absolutely do that. Now, thankfully, brands know me and I get stuff for free.
On her most viral post
For some reason, people really love my cleaning and restocking videos. I think my most viral video might have been like 60 million views, or somewhere around there.
- Favorite cleanfluencer: Cat Benson. I’ve always loved her content.
- Other go-to TikTok content: I’m more of an audio book girl—anything that I can multitask with.
Carly Castro
@cleanwcarly, 251.2K followers on TikTok and 69.7K followers on Instagram
On starting her TikTok
I started with political content, for two months. I got sick of the false information going around. I would get clips from politicians saying something, then denying they said that specific thing. It was a catch-a-lie type of thing. It skyrocketed! The engagement was insane.
I was starting a cleaning business, so outside of political content, I was on CleanTok, trying to get information. There was no one really saying, "This is how I did it. This was a waste of money. Do that instead!" I was like, I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna show the ugly, the good, and hopefully help somebody along the way. After switching my niche, within two months I gained 30,000 followers. It was crazy.
On her CleanTok video process
I’ll pick something that needs to be cleaned, and usually it’s about 35, 45 minutes. The longest process is my script: I’ve been doing this for three years, so I feel like I’ve said everything. I never want to be repetitive. Sometimes it’ll take three hours sitting in front of my iPad. That’s the hardest part. I edit on the TikTok app for free, and it doesn’t take more than 30 minutes. I have a $20 tripod. The filming is the easiest because cleaning comes like second nature to me.
On connecting cleaning content with politics
People are very loud about their opinions. Why can’t I be loud about mine? A lot of people don’t relate to immigration if you don’t know anybody that is an immigrant. For me, those are my parents. They worked two jobs, they were cleaners their whole lives, they couldn’t afford a babysitter, so they would pick me up from school and I would go to their second job and watch them clean. Sometimes I wouldn’t go to bed until 11 p.m.! Then they woke up at 5 a.m., made me breakfast, and did it again. I want people to understand that it is very dangerous for immigrants to work this job. It’s really important to put a face to those issues. I did a video on this when it happened, but a house cleaner was given the wrong address and a man shot her. People are like, "This is heartbreaking! A mother!" and then it came out that she was a Guatemalan immigrant. Then, people are like, "Well, she should have known where she was going." I will lose followers, I will lose brand deals. I don’t care. There are so many things much more important than cutesy little TikTok videos and aesthetics.
On her top-performing videos
The ones that do the best are the ones where I’m honest. Sometimes I walk into a client’s house and there’s little marks on the toilet. We all poop. You’re not disgusting and lazy because there are marks on the toilet! You have figurines that are dusty? You haven’t done your baseboards in two years? That’s okay. Some house cleaners shame people.
On what she hopes people get from her content
When it comes to your average viewer, I hope they realize it’s okay to say cleaning sucks and it’s boring. They’re not lazy because they don’t find scrubbing their baseboards fun. A lot of us who do this professionally? We agree. It’s normal. It’s okay to be honest about that but, along the way, let me teach you how to do it properly.
- Go-to cleaning tip: For streaks on glass or stainless steel, the most important thing is a glass polishing towel. That is going to change your life.
Brandon Pleshek
@cleanthatup, 1.9M followers on TikTok and 1.5M followers on Instagram
On his relationship to cleaning
I grew up in the business. From a very young age, I liked being at my grandparents’ house, where [our family company] was run. There’s pictures of me answering phones at five years old, then at 10 I was sweeping the shop. Before I knew it, I was starting to work on job sites and cleaning. Cleaning has always been a part of my life. There was a time in my teens where I didn’t want to do it, but I came around to it and took over the family business as the third-generation janitor.
On becoming a CleanTok creator
In 2016, I had the idea. I was watching a ton of YouTube and saw the evolution of people making videos on interesting things. If I had something to fix around my house, I would go to YouTube, and I noticed there’s a bunch of cleaning stuff there. I started the Clean That Up Instagram and I always had the idea that I could teach people how to clean, but I took over the family business and life just got crazy. Fast-forward to 2020, Covid hit and no one wanted us going into their homes. I had a ton of time on my hands, stressed out like everyone. I was consuming a ton of TikTok, and I was like, I should post some of these cleaning videos I have on my phone. I posted one of me vacuuming a rug. It was very satisfying; there was a bunch of junk on it. I think it got 30,000 views. I was like, there’s no way. I started getting comments and messages from people, like "Hey, do you know how to clean a toilet?" "You know how to get this off of this surface?" I was doing a lot of cleaning alone, so I had a little extra time to set up a camera and start recording—and TikTok blew up.
On how his content has evolved
In the early days, it was me and an iPhone and a tripod. Not even a tripod at first! Just me, doing it all by myself, then coming home after a day of cleaning and editing videos. I was using InShot, some app I downloaded. At that point I had edited 10 videos in my life because I used to make skater videos when I was a teenager. I was figuring it out on the fly. It got to a point where I couldn’t do it by myself. The one hard thing about making cleaning content is I can talk to the camera and explain my process, but then I still have to actually clean the thing and show it. A normal job that would take me two hours was starting to take me four because I was trying to get all the right shots. I realized quickly that if I have someone with me who can help me clean but also knows how to hold a camera, that would be helpful.
I brought on my cousin; he got it right away as he’s even younger than me and was on TikTok. He moved on to another job, and at that point I had to hire someone to shoot videos. I didn’t want them to know anything about cleaning. I landed on the gentleman who still works with me. His name is Noah and he helps me film everything, he produces a ton of videos, helps write scripts, and he just gets it. Before him, there was a bottleneck of content. I couldn’t get to it—posting across platforms takes hours sometimes. I hired a good friend of mine as my full-time YouTube editor.
On his ideal cleaning videos
I love taking something that is someone else’s trash, that they think is garbage and don’t want to spend time cleaning, and I can clean that and make it useful again. You add the sounds in and the scrubbing and all that stuff—this sounds cliché but it’s just satisfying. Some of my early videos that really popped off were me taking stuff that I found at thrift stores, or a rug I found on the side of the street. Watching that transformation is great.
On whether his social media success has boosted business
It’s definitely helped our local business, but we don’t advertise at all on it. Three years ago, we split off a portion of the business, like the floor care and the commercial stuff. A good friend bought a portion of it. He was pretty much like, "You have lightning in the bottle with this creator thing. You should do that. Let me run the business, and we’ll figure it out." There’s another portion my dad and I still run: I need the cleaning business for the videos because they help feed content. It’s pretty much 90 percent Clean That Up and 10 percent in the day-to-day cleaning business locally.
- Most-requested cleaning videos: Glass shower doors—I could make a video every month. They’re hard to clean!
Favorite space to clean: There’s nothing like a clean bathroom.
Christy B
@christyytiktok, 176.2K followers on TikTok and 134K subscribers on YouTube
On getting started on CleanTok
I have always enjoyed watching cleaning content. I was a teacher before this, but I started my TikTok in 2025. I had just moved to a new country and was between jobs so I had some time on my hands. I started making short videos of cleaning resets and ASMR cleaning content. Some of the videos did well so I thought, "I should make longer content on YouTube!" After a few months I had maybe 20,000 or 30,000 followers on TikTok. Then I was uploading consistently and it jumped to 50,000 or 60,000 and it just grew from there. I remember I had a couple of viral videos and I would get hundreds of follows every couple of minutes. One video had 21 million views and I think I gained around 30,000 followers from that in a few days. Once I started taking it seriously and posting nearly every day the numbers grew.
YouTube has always been my favorite platform. I uploaded my first long-form video I think 10 months ago and I have been making new ones every Friday since. My first two or three did really well, which surprised me! I think one has over 1.5 million views now. I started creating content as a hobby and it has turned into my full-time career.
On how her cleaning process has changed
Anything I clean for content I would clean anyways. My process takes a lot longer now because I’m trying to get a certain angle. Since I’ve had my own apartment I just love keeping it clean. I’m the type of person who can’t fully relax until my space is tidy. That doesn’t mean that I don’t make a mess, because I definitely do. Any time I make dinner it is a complete mess, but I like to tidy up afterward.
My video-making process has changed in that I know what I want to film and where I want to set up my camera. That has definitely become easier. It is a lot of trial and error. I used to have a lot of my cleaning supplies in my last apartment but a lot of them were gifted. Now that I’m in a new space I’m keeping my collection small. You really don’t need a lot of cleaning supplies. My top list would be disinfectant spray, dish soap, bleach, window/mirror cleaner, surface space, vinegar, baking soda, and floor cleaner.
On not showing her face in videos
It wasn’t really a conscious decision. When I started creating content I didn’t tell anyone, not even my boyfriend and we live together, so I just filmed without my face. It’s just kind of transitioned into the way I film now. I get a lot of comments on YouTube saying that they enjoy the ASMR aspect and that I don’t waste time talking when they are watching to see cleaning. I don’t think about it too much. I want my content to focus on cleaning, organization, styling, and tips for maintaining a clean space, not really about me!
On the appeal of ASMR cleaning
Watching something go from completely messy and dirty to clean and tidy scratches an itch in people’s brains. Mine included. ASMR is scientifically proven (I think?) to relax you, so the mixture of the two makes looking away from one of those videos very difficult. They suck you in! I am definitely my own target audience.
- Most frequent blooper: Turning the shower on myself while filming. I’ve done that too many times!
- Least-favorite CleanTok content: People pulling hair out of drains or dirty toilets!
Jess
@jesskeepcleaning, 79.9K followers on TikTok and 55.8K followers on Instagram
On starting her TikTok
It all started in August 2023, when I was home bored and looking for something new to do after spending time watching cleaning motivation videos on YouTube. I mentioned the idea of creating cleaning content to my husband, and he encouraged me to go for it. I didn’t even have TikTok at the time, but I downloaded the app and posted my first cleaning video that same day. My following started growing much faster after my first viral video that December. That video got over a million views.
On planning her content
Most of my video ideas come from interacting with the CleanTok community, but sometimes an idea will randomly come to me. I’m a stay-at-home mom who simply enjoys cleaning; my content comes from sharing something I genuinely love doing and turning my everyday into satisfying videos.
On staying anonymous and leaning into ASMR
I chose not to show my face or use voiceovers because privacy is important to me and being on camera can sometimes make me feel anxious. My content has never really been about me: it’s about cleaning, satisfying ASMR, and the transformations. I developed my style by staying true to what I enjoyed watching. I’ve started focusing more on the natural sounds of cleaning instead of adding music. I try to focus on the sounds that make the experience feel calming and relaxing.
On the current culture of cleanliness
A clean space can feel calming, refreshing, and satisfying. With social media, we also get to see those satisfying before-and-after transformations which can make cleaning feel fun and motivating. I don’t think we’re necessarily too obsessed with cleanliness. It really depends on what makes each person feel comfortable in their own space.
- Most viral video: Cleaning mold. I think the dramatic before and after caught people’s attention because it was so satisfying to see the difference.
- Most overlooked spot to clean: Window seals and sliding door tracks! They collect so much hidden dirt and grime.
Top images courtesy of subjects
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