The Nashville native has been making the most of her newfound fame.
It’s been less than a month since everybody’s timeline was dominated by the clip of a young woman making an explicit admission during an on-street interview.
In the weeks following her viral moment, Hailey Welch has amassed close to 100k followers on her Instagram fan page, and has made around $70,000 by selling hats and t-shirts with her iconic ‘Hawk Tuah’ phrase branded on the material.
If, by some miracle, the unmistakable clip hasn’t appeared while scrolling through your social media timeline yet, let us explain the story behind the two words that have been at the forefront of everyone’s mind for the past week.
On June 11, Hailey Welch became the latest main character on the internet after she appeared in a video from content creators Tim & Dee TV.
They were asking people on the street questions about matters related to the bedroom, and including asking women what for their “move in bed [that] makes a man go crazy every time.”
It was in response to this that Hailey said: “You gotta give ’em that ‘hawk tuah’ and spit on that thang.”
@iamdlaney 😂 #funny #fy #foryoupage #foryou #lol ♬ original sound – Dustin Laney
Since the clip was shared on TikTok, it has gone stratospherically viral, and Welch has shot to internet stardom.
The next logical step on the viral hype train was to cash in, and merch was thus created.
Rolling Stone reports that there is only one official Hawk Tuah Girl-licensed Hawk Tuah merch vendor, and that is Fathead Threads, a family-owned business from Tennessee.
The company is run by Jason Poteete, who has known Welch for years, and a couple of days after she went viral he reached out to her to figure out a way to monetise her brand.
Poteete explained that Welch “hasn’t gotten a dime” from the video itself – which has been viewed millions of times – so he wanted her to get some sort of financial reward for her fame.
“Nobody was asking permission for her to do nothing, neither,” he explained. “I just wanted her to get some profit off of this deal.”
He suggested to her that she trademark the Hawk Tuah phrase and Welch, who is represented by an agent, has apparently been in touch with a lawyer about doing this.
Poteete said Welch has been “overwhelmed” by her viral fame, adding the he isn’t sure if “she’s embraced it.”
But it sounds like she’s earning some decent coin from the whole thing now. Fathead Threads are exclusively selling “Hawk Tuah ’24” hats for $32.78 each, and Poteete reckons his shop has sold just over 2,000 so far.
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Poteete added he hopes Welch settles into her newfound fame, and that he thinks “she’ll do fine in the end.”
He also said the video is a pretty accurate representation of what she’s like in real life, saying she has a “bubbly personality” and can be “somewhat risque.”
A satirical social media page by the name of Tippah County Tribune misled many of Hailey’s followers by spreading the rumour that she had lost her job as a preschool teacher at as a result of her viral antics.
Their fake story included children “spitting on each other and everything else” in the wake of the video.
Locals pointed out that she actually worked as a bartender. If that actually is the case, she has probably been getting tipped nicely over the past couple of weeks.
According to TMZ, the number of trademarks for the phrase has hit double digits with multiple businesses looking to slap the phrase on just about everything that could, even loosely, be connected to the immortal words.
That includes lubricants, chewing tobacco, oral care, hair and body products, beverages and, of course, sex toys.
There’s even a suggestion that a range of ‘Hawk Tuah’ hot sauces could be on the horizon. If that happens, we need to see Hailey on Hot Ones.
