How Interior Design TikTok Drama Is Raising Questions About Claims of Originality Online

Every few days, a new drama seems to emerge between content creators on TikTok—and more often than not, it revolves around content theft. In an increasingly saturated influencer landscape, one of the key ways for creators to differentiate themselves from their peers is through the originality of their content. When they feel that someone else is benefiting from their ideas, they often leverage their following to call out the alleged perpetrator and ruin the so-called “thief’s” credibility. But the world of DIY and interior design, where this latest drama takes place—much like any other creative endeavor—thrives on imitation and inspiration, making originality a slippery claim.

The drama begins with a now-deleted video uploaded last week by a popular creator with close to 2 million followers who goes by the handle @TayBeepBoop. She is known for videos in which she decorated her house with a monster head gallery wall and a gradient room—a departure from the beige minimalism seen widely on the app these days. In the deleted video, she said she conceded that while it might be “petty,” she felt she had to call out another creator with more than 2 million followers who goes by @KaarinJoy for allegedly copying her ideas. While her language is indirect, she tries to make a point with comparisons between her own videos and @KaarinJoy’s, saying the similarities are “getting out of hand.”

To paint a better picture: Tay has a large mirror that she decorated with moss and flowers, and so does Kaarin. Tay has a squiggly green line that she painted on the wall going down her stairs, and Kaarin has a squiggly green line painted in her kitchen. Tay displayed her boyfriend’s monster head art pieces on the wall, and Kaarin hung a series of dinosaur heads in picture frames. Tay also accused Kaarin of copying her green and blue gradient room after Kaarin decided to paint the cabinets in her kitchen green and blue, pointing out that Kaarin also purchased the peel-and-stick wallpaper Tay designed in collaboration with Otto Studio (though, she allowed, anyone can buy the wallpaper).

At the end of the video, Tay says that she messaged Kaarin and asked her to “stop copying [her],” to which she says Kaarin responded that she “didn’t want to copy [her].”

Claims of content theft have come in many forms on TikTok. Comedians have accused creators of stealing their jokes, bar for bar, with small changes to try to make them their own. The biggest and most persistent problem has been related to dance challenges created by Black creators and their fight for proper credit. Since the app got popular back in 2020, there have been multiple instances in which Black TikTokers have created a dance, only to have it go viral after being co-opted by white creators who failed to give proper credit. The issue culminated in the Black TikTok strike in 2021 and, two years later, still persists—exemplified most recently by Jordyn Williams and her viral dance challenge earlier this year.

Such drama, as some commenters pointed out, might seem unlikely in a community of DIY arts-and-crafters, but many of the central themes cut across artistic mediums. After Tay posted her original video, she was met with backlash, with critics pointing out that she herself has been open about finding inspiration for her DIY projects on Pinterest. Even if Kaarin found inspiration from Tay, they argued, Tay in turn had sourced ideas from someone else. The general consensus among these commenters and other TikTokers dueting the video was that Tay was wrong to call our Kaarin in the way that she did. In response to this criticism, Tay uploaded a text to her Instagram story, saying, “I posted a [video] today that I should’ve continued to handle privately. This isn’t what I want my page to be about, so I removed it.” She continued to say she’s passionate about “credit to designers and creators” and wishes that could have been the focus of this conversation.

Kaarin uploaded a response to the drama on TikTok last week and confirmed that the two had spoken over DMs. In the video, Kaarin says that Tay asked her to stop doing her DIYs, and Kaarin said, “I wish she had come to me privately because I’m so frustrated.” Tay seemed to have moved on from the drama, but the comments section of her videos and Otto Studio did not. In videos she uploaded after the criticism began, users left comments like, “If I buy your wallpaper, can I hang it up, or do I need to ask your permission?”

On Saturday, Otto uploaded a post on Instagram and TikTok, saying that their collaboration with Tay would “no longer be available for purchase.” The company said they are “disappointed in and do not stand behind the video that Tay BeepBoop posted regarding Kaarin Joy earlier this week.” They write that her actions go “against the values and ethos of the DIY community.”

Tay also uploaded an apology video that day. “My behavior has been wild and inappropriate,” she says in the video before apologizing for “taking so long to realize that.” The creator also says this was a “massive learning moment” and that she apologized to Kaarin personally.

TIME reached out to Tay, Kaarin, and Otto Studio for comment but did not immediately hear back.