Brett Chody Was Made For The Influencer Life

Brett Chody possesses all the qualities necessary for being a great influencer. The 25-year-old creator not only has enviable taste in fashion and food — she’s especially known for her sweet treat dessert bowls — but can inspire someone like me, a non-athlete, to go for a run. On a cloudy November day in Santa Monica, I’m sitting with Chody at Tartine Bakery with the lemon pistachio cranberry teacake she ordered in front of her as she tells me about her next Bites Run Club meetup near Venice Beach. “Anyone's welcome, and we'd love to have you,” she says. I’m not even a short-distance jogger, but there’s something so inviting about Chody that I’m immediately convinced to wake up early on a Sunday morning to drive across town and join her.

Named after her social media handle (@brettsbites), where her content includes “lifestyle with pockets of food and workouts,” Bites Run Club is a chance for Chody and her followers — nearly 400,000 of them across YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram — to link up in different cities to network, make friends, and go for a quick jog. “It's getting harder and harder for people to meet friends organically,” she says, which inspired her to kick off the group with a run in New York City in February. “I organized it the day before, posted the info on my story, and 100 girls came, which I was stunned at.” Her second meetup in October in Chicago, planned around the Chicago Marathon, brought in over 1,000 people. “Seeing everyone there for me was the most surreal experience,” she says.

Although the LA Bites Run Club event I planned to attend was postponed due to unexpected rainfall, that hasn’t changed my excitement. Chody is the kind of down-to-earth, cool girl that you want to be friends with. As we discuss her wins this year — major brand deals, her face on a billboard, and a like from one of the biggest celebs in the world — Chody seems extremely grateful for every opportunity that has come her way. “I'm living out my dreams, which is really cool,” she says. Sipping an Arnold Palmer in an effortlessly chic ensemble of a Parke denim bomber jacket and Leset pants, Chody fits the LA influencer vibe perfectly, but she was a Midwestern girl growing up. “When I was in high school, I was like, ‘I just want to live in LA and go to Alfred [a trendy coffee shop in SoCal],” the Illinois native says. “It's funny that this is my life now.”

Never did we imagine it would just become the phenomenon that it did. I was just seeing everyone saying, ‘I fear,’ everywhere.’

She started running during her freshman year of high school when she joined the cross country team, and during her junior year, she suffered an injury that forced her to find a creative outlet on social media. “That was during the smoothie craze, and all these bloggers were making these elaborate drinks,” she says. “I was really fascinated by them, so I started sharing recipes. I was the girl in high school who was talking to herself on camera, pretending I was talking to my followers who were nonexistent.”

Since she first started posting nine years ago, her growth has been gradual. “I really haven't had one specific thing where I gained so many followers,” she says, and she prefers it that way. “I love the slow burn because I am able to connect with my audience as if they know me.”

Her running content has earned Chody recognition and a community online, but it’s also the friends she made while attending the University of Southern California (she was a journalism major) that helped with her viral success — namely, her roommate, Jake Shane. “We met on move-in day in 2018 at USC,” she says. “He's just obviously the funniest person ever, as everyone knows, so I gravitated towards him, and we've been friends ever since.” The two have been living together for four years now, and you can often hear her laughing in the background of his TikToks. Chody has also made several guest appearances on Shane’s Therapuss podcast since its launch in early 2024.

In the moment, it was tough, but I knew that I wanted to share both the good and bad sides of running.

Her iconic line during an April 2024 episode, “that’s like common sense, I fear,” boosted her following and put her on the map with Shane’s audience. She said it off-handedly after Shane asked her if the Boston Marathon is longer than other runs. “Jake was at Coachella that weekend [when it was posted],” she says. “We saw a few videos pop up, and we were like, ‘Oh, people are using this as a sound, so crazy.’ Then all of a sudden, it was all over.” (The video has 1.9 million likes, and the sound has been used over 18,000 times.) “We thought it was a funny moment from the podcast, but never did we imagine it would just become the phenomenon that it did,” she says. “I was just seeing everyone saying, ‘I fear,’ everywhere.”

Chody loves being a comfort watch for followers who are scrolling their FYP and want to join someone on their day-to-day adventures — but she doesn’t shy away from documenting hard times. While Chody’s fourth marathon this past October in Chicago “didn’t go well,” she still shared the experience. “In the moment, it was tough, but I knew that I wanted to share both the good and bad sides of running,” she says. “It made me feel better about the weekend as a whole that so many people were like, ‘Thank you for sharing, we love you, we're still proud of you.’” She says meeting people who were inspired by her to run was the “coolest thing ever.”

It’s second only to her No. 1 pinch-me moment — a Nike campaign, which she shot in July. “That was something beyond my wildest dreams. I never could have guessed that I would be able to film a Nike ad in Barcelona, especially at this stage of my career,” she says. Since then, she’s also worked with Meta and Bloom. (For the latter, Chody even has her own billboard on Fairfax Avenue in LA.)

Another one of Chody’s big wins this year was getting a like from Taylor Swift on TikTok in October. “I was freaking out,” she says. “She's liked and commented on a few of Jake's TikToks that I was in, but she had never liked one of mine.” The video — which features Chody and Shane reacting to “The Fate of Ophelia” for the first time — has over 3.4 million views. “It's not like Taylor’s liking all these TikToks, she's only liking a select few,” she says. “That was wild for sure.”

Since the guests on Shane’s podcast come over to their home to record, Chody has also met some of her fave A-listers this year, like Hailey Bieber, Lorde, and Selena Gomez. “Lorde was so cool because she literally came to our house, sat on the couch, and talked with us for 10 minutes. We couldn't speak,” she says. “That was a time I was super starstruck.”

Now that she’s checked off a lot of her influencer dreams, Chody says she’s hoping to tap into her fashion and beauty side next. “I really want to be the face of a skin care company and maybe have that tie into running in some way, shape, or form,” she says. Chody is also manifesting a way to use her degree from USC.

“My biggest career goal right now is to use being a content creator to circle back to some sort of journalism opportunity — whether that be hosting a red carpet or something that has to do with sports,” she says. She’s also planning another marathon and hoping to grow her online community even more in 2026. “I'm taking my Run Club to more places, which is really exciting,” she says. “I love traveling around and meeting followers.”

Of course, Chody doesn’t have to go far to find fans. After finishing our treats at Tartine, a follower who recognized the content creator stopped us to share that she was planning to attend the LA Run Club meetup. The two chatted for a bit before hugging goodbye. Getting to witness this interaction IRL, it’s never been clearer that Chody was made for this. That truly is common sense, I fear.