Marc Sebastian is noticeably frazzled. The TikTok star—who recently disembarked Royal Caribbean’s Ultimate World Cruise after an 18-day stint on its nine-month global tour—is about to answer a question about the experience when our interview is stopped by Whoopi Goldberg.
Goldberg, Sebastian says, was chosen a while back to be the godmother of the Serenade of the Seas, the name of the ship that takes passengers on the Ultimate World Cruise (continuing a longtime tradition of cruise lines selecting someone, usually a woman, to be the godmother of a ship and bless it with good luck before it sets sail). Now, she is about to play his TikTok—where he talked about learning that Goldberg was the godmother of the Serenade of the Seas—on The View. He then asks what many under the age of 40 might wonder: “Quick question: where does one watch The View?”
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Sebastian, 33, is a TikTok creator and former model who gained popularity in 2022 with videos on fashion and pop culture recommendations, and featuring him opening gashapons (miniature toys). When the nine-month cruise set sail in December and went viral in early January, Sebastian made a video emphatically suggesting he join it to catalog the inevitable drama—or maybe be the cause. “Put cameras on that godd-mn cruise,” he says in the video. “Alternatively, put me in. I’ll go… I’ll go cause chaos, I’ll wreak havoc, and I’ll record everything.”
The viral nature of the nine-month world cruise has gained comparisons to the popularity of Bama Rush, the annual event where young women rushing sororities at the University of Alabama show off their daily outfits online, or the infamous Fyre Festival. The Ultimate World Cruise is a nine-month-long cruise that embarked on on Dec. 10 and is visiting all seven continents across 274 nights. To be on board for all nine months, rates start at about $60,000 per person and goes up to $117,600 per person on the higher end. Not everyone who is on the ship is there for the whole time; there are options to go for certain legs of the cruise.
As soon as this was announced, TikTok creators knew that being on a cruise ship for this long would inevitably spark drama and discourse, making it the perfect opportunity for creators to make content on the ship and about their time on it. Some, like Sebastian, also suggested reality television show producers were missing out on an opportunity for good television. Creators started making videos about their fascination with the people who chose to spend nine months of their lives on a ship, suggesting people to follow. Some of the most notable people to follow include Little Rat Brain, who chooses to keep her identity a secret and provides updates on what it is like to live on a cruise; Joe and Audrey Martucci, a retired couple with the username @spendingourkidsmoney; Amike Oosthuizen, a South African influencer; and many more. Every day, a new person posts videos from the ship or makes videos about what they saw someone else post.
Sebastian saw an opportunity for some fun, low-stakes chaos. His intentions were clear: get the gossip and report on the dynamics on the ship.
He got on the ship by convincing Atria Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, to fund his trip on the Antarctica leg of the Ultimate World Cruise on the promise that he would start a book club on his TikTok Live, where he’d read and discuss The Last One by Will Dean—a book chosen by his followers after he asked them to vote in the first video he made on the boat. In an emailed statement, Atria says it jumped at the opportunity to work with Sebastian and that the partnership helped to increase “Atria’s TikTok presence exponentially and saw a nice pop in sales across all formats of The Last One.” While he admittedly did not wreak total havoc after boarding in Buenos Aires, Sebastian provided honest and transparent updates about everything he was experiencing—making him the enemy of the boomers on Facebook and on and off the ship.
Sebastian’s videos from the ship included promotion for his book club and Atria Books, as well as brutally honest reviews of day-to-day life. One of his most popular videos is him opening a gashapon as the ship goes through the Drake Passage, accumulating over 13.5 million views.
One of his other most viewed videos is one in which he discusses the middling color options at the ship’s nail salon and details getting kicked out of the ship’s exclusive Pinnacle Lounge after another guest told on him for not being a pinnacle member, which was watched over two million times.
Royal Caribbean, he says, was undoubtedly keeping up with his and other creators’ videos. After the Pinnacle Lounge debacle, he says he was called into the “guest service’s version of the principal’s office” and was “scolded.” But “if they had kicked me off or reprimanded me, it wouldn’t have looked good on them,” he says. Other moments also showed him that the company was watching his TikTok closely: After he complained in one video about only having wire hangers in his room, he received plastic hangers the next day. Royal Caribbean did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sebastian’s presence on the cruise.
For Sebastian, the 18 days on the Royal Caribbean cruise have opened his eyes to the blurry lines of promotion and entertainment. As one of several creators posting about the ship, whether the videos are positive or negative, he’s giving Royal Caribbean free promotion. Sebastian says he was more than happy to speak up on the issues he faced, including the “bad vibes” at the ship’s cafe, dealing with older cruisers, and mishaps at the ports.
On the ship, he says he witnessed other creators being treated unfairly, which he says they would not speak up about because they would “have to admit that maybe it wasn’t worth that much money to pay.” When he unfollowed the company on TikTok while on the ship, he says he was called out for saying they weren’t treating influencers correctly. He says, “I was not referring to me. I was referring to the other influencers that are on board that are giving them millions and millions and millions of free views, and they’re being treated like garbage.”
For example, he says, the company invited a group of influencers to the Chef’s Table, which was supposed to be seen as a thank you, but Sebastian says they all had to agree to post a video about the meal, which defeats the purpose of a free meal. “You’re not giving them a ‘Thank You,’ you’re giving them work to do,” he says. Royal Caribbean did not immediately respond to a request for comment on its work with and treatment of influencers.
Sebastian was not concerned about ruffling feathers on the ship; he went on the boat with a plan to execute a marketing plan to see how well something like this would work. While it was a success, he says he will not be getting back on a cruise anytime soon. “I cared about showing people that I could execute this marketing plan within an inch of its life and do it in a calculated way and exit that ship like a marketing genius,” he says. “I feel like I’m proud of the work that I did there.”
Sebastian says he didn’t make any money from the videos he posted on the ship. While he got a budget to book his travel to and from the ship and for his time on the ship, he didn’t monetize any of the 40 videos he posted on the boat, which accumulated over 55 million views. He’s not a part of TikTok’s Creativity Program Beta and says he didn’t want to monetize the videos because he feels that TikTok doesn’t push monetized videos in the same way they push non-monetized videos. TikTok declined to comment on its monetization strategy. The platform recommends videos to users based on several factors, including looking at their interests and interactions with others.
“I wanted it to be pushed out as far as possible, with the hopes that I would see a return on my investment, and I did,” he says. “Cast a wide net, catch more fish. Cast a short one… I don’t know, get less views? I just made that saying up.”
He says if he monetized his content, he could’ve made around $15,000 to $20,000 based on the views his videos have now received. “That’s a lot of money, but that was a short-term goal, and I had a long-term vision,” he says. The only thing he made was incredible content and some friends along the way, he adds, half in jest.
Playing the long game might prove to be the right move: Sebastian has seen a boost in his visibility, with his cruise ship journey getting coverage in major news outlets like the Washington Post and the New York Times. Recently, he’s put out retrospective content looking back at his time on the Serenade of the Seas and it seems like he’s ready for another trip, this time on land. Some of his followers suggested he go to Coachella, taking place in the California desert in April—he’s open to the idea.
He’s glad to know that his trip wasn’t in vain. “I went out there and said, ‘I’m not here to make friends,’” he tells TIME. “I went out of there making friends and won, so now what?”
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