For Madison Humphrey, Imitation Is The Sincerest Form Of Flattery

Look under the comments section of any out-there TikTok, and there will be one name mentioned countless times: Madison Humphrey. The 26-year-old content creator is famous on the app for her parodies, and her followers tag her under the videos they hope she’ll recreate. She rarely disappoints — even if the parody requires acting out a wedding in the middle of a water park, surrounded by Jet Skis.

“The water park reached out to me. The subject of the email was literally ‘Does Madison need a water park?’” she says, joining our Zoom call from a bright and sunny room in her Dallas home. “I was like, ‘Yes, yes.’” She’s also officiated a wedding next to a fire truck, got married on a Southwest flight (with the help of a flight attendant who follows her), and rollerbladed down the aisle, to name a few.

Humphrey has always had a penchant for theatrics. “From a really young age, I was researching ‘How to get an agent? How to be in a movie? How to be in a TV show?’ I had a notebook where I would write down all my findings,” she says. Theater in high school helped her hone her comedic timing, a skill she brought with her to the University of North Texas, where she minored in theater performance.

Still, becoming TikTok's favorite source of comedic relief was unexpected. “I’m super introverted, so I was never the class clown,” she says, even though she always was the “funny friend” in her group. In the fall of 2021, she started posting on the app, shooting the solo videos with a tripod in her bedroom. “I’d make these little high school-themed skits. Honestly, they’re really cringey to look back on,” she says. “Sometimes I’ll see people repost them, and I’m like, ‘Oh, no, no, no, no.’”

I always want to be laughing with people and not at people.

Eventually, she started getting a couple of thousand views on her videos. Her slow and steady growth reached its stride when she started writing skits around her leasing manager character — poking fun at the stereotype who’s notoriously unprepared but always carrying a lanyard full of jangling keys. “There was never one moment where I was like, ‘OK, this is how to make people laugh.’ I feel like that changes every day, but that was the first time I was like, ‘Oh, this is what it really means to go viral.’”

At the time, Humphrey was working as a sideline reporter for college football — a gig she was nervous about giving up to pursue social media full-time. “Broadcast journalism is very cutthroat. You have to start from the bottom and work your way up,” she says. But in April 2022, she decided to go for it. “I was really worried. I knew if I took a year off of college football and needed to come back, I’d have to start all the way over. So my mindset was ‘This better work out.’”

It did. Humphrey now has more than 4.8 million TikTok followers who tune in for her relatable sense of humor and admirable commitment to the bit. About a year and a half ago, she started doing parody content. Now, that might be what she’s best known for. Her page is full of videos of surprising wedding venues, proposals gone awry, and elaborate gender reveals.

“The whole parody thing started when I saw cringey wedding trends — like the groom smashing cake in the bride’s face really meanly and overdramatically,” she says. “Getting married in a water park? Iconic. It doesn’t happen every day. Those videos are really fun to recreate.” She wasn’t basing her skits on specific people, but her followers soon started tagging her in videos they wanted her to remake.

“Very quickly, I realized, ‘Wait a second, these are actual weddings. I need to be checking in with these people.’” A few DMs from the people she was parodying also helped her fine-tune her approach. “I got a couple messages from people, saying, ‘Hey, we don’t mind that you recreated it. We just would’ve loved to have been asked.’”

It was a “learning moment” for Humphrey. She reached out to people she’d parodied, apologized, and asked if they wanted her to take the videos down. Most, however, didn’t mind. “The original posters have a lot of fun seeing their moments brought to life in a different way.”

Still, Humphrey decided that she would ask for permission, going forward. “I always want to be laughing with people and not at people,” she says. At this point, people tend to understand Humphrey’s parody style — and they’re excited to be in on the action. “When I go to reach out to people, 99% of the time, they’ve already messaged me asking if I’ll recreate it,” she says.

Let’s put that out there. Who do I need to talk to get on Jury Duty?

Already, her success on social media has led to a commercial with Jake From State Farm and three movies (Offsite, an indie horror-comedy; Cowgirl for Christmas, a holiday movie; and Wish Watch, a time-loop movie, set in high school) in the works. “Every day, I feel super thankful that I get to do this as my job,” she says. “I absolutely love it.”

There’s still more Humphrey is hoping to achieve, specifically more acting roles — and maybe even a spot on Jury Duty. “Every episode, I tell my husband, ‘If they called me, I would pack my suitcase that day and go and do it,’” she says. “Let’s put that out there. Who do I need to talk to get on Jury Duty?”

But even if Jury Duty doesn’t call, she has plenty to keep her busy. In between water park bookings and Southwest takeovers, Humphrey has another major project in the works: a film about two of her “most-loved characters.” After about a year of writing, Humphrey and her co-writers finished the script and hired a casting director. “We’re manifesting getting this project off the ground because it can be a very slow, sometimes discouraging process,” she says. “But I really believe that when you put it out there, it’s going to happen.”