If you’ve spent any time on the internet lately, you might have seen the term “hawk tuah” make its way around. But where did it come from?
The “hawk tuah” girl has become a viral sensation after she appeared in a street interview that was published on TikTok in June 2024. It has since spread to other platforms such as YouTube and X.
But who is the woman, and what does hawk tuah mean?
Who is the hawk tuah girl?
The woman behind the viral “hawk tuah” catchphrase on social media has been identified as Hailey Welch. However, it wasn’t easy to identify her.
It all started when interviewers TimandDeeTV were in Nashville, Tennessee when they came across the woman and her friend and decided to ask them a few questions for their video.
After saying “hawk tuah” in the clip, it quickly caught on as the internet’s latest catchphrase, leaving viewers in a frenzy trying to identify the unnamed woman.
Users were certain that the viral “hawk tuah” girl was a woman on TikTok by the name of Elayna Robinson at first, but she uploaded a video debunking that claim.
Users have since discovered a comment from TimandDeeTV, the original interviewers of the “hawk tuah” girl, tagging two women — Chelsea Bradford and Hailey Welch — but it appears it may have since been deleted.
Chelsea Bradford has a picture alongside Hailey Welch on her VSCO account, seemingly confirming her and Welch as the viral sensations in the video.
What does hawk tuah mean?
Hawk tuah is said to act out the noise of spitting. The phrase came about from Welch, who said it in response to a question asked by TimandDeeTV in their street interview video.
How much has the hawk tuah girl earned from going viral?
Since the video that went viral wasn’t Welch’s, she did not earn anything from the video itself. However, she’s still profited from her catchphrase by bringing out merch.
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Soon after going viral, Jason Poteete of Fathead Threads connected the hawk tuah girl, who joined up with the apparel maker to create signed hats with ‘Hawk Tuah 24’ stitched into the front, which became a big success.
The ‘Hawk Tuah 24’ hats are available in 14 colors for $32.78 each, as well as a $50 signed version, according to Rolling Stone. the Fathead Threads owner says that he estimates that the shop has sold just over 2,000 hats.
Doing the math with just the cheapest version, that comes to $65,560. And since some of those sales were the more expensive version – the number is much higher.
However, Poteete wouldn’t say how much of the profit is going to Welch but said he wanted to make sure she saw some of the money being made off of her.
“Of course she hasn’t gotten a dime from the first viral video that went out,” Poteete told the magazine. “Nobody was asking permission for her to do nothing, neither. I just wanted her to get some profit off of this deal.”
Poteete said that he’s had a massive interest in the merch, and everyone involved is “all hands on deck with the process of making and shipping the viral hats.
Did she lose her job?
As Welch grew more and more viral, rumors started spreading about her job, with some reports even suggesting that she was fired from her teaching job because of the video. However, this is not true.
The allegations can be traced back to a Facebook page known as the Tippah County Tribune. In a post on June 21, the page wrote that a preschool teacher was forced to resign after her going viral as the ‘hawk tuah’ girl.
“We have kids spitting on each other and everything else since they heard their beloved Miss Hailey say ‘spit on that thang’ on YouTube. They really look up to her as a role model and imitate the things that she does. We love Hailey but unfortunately, we cannot allow this type of behavior from one of our very own faculty members,” the page wrote, citing Epstein Day School Director Carla Reed.
However, people soon looked into the Facebook page only to realize it wasn’t a credible news source as it described itself as “Tippah County’s #1 Publication For Satirical Laughs”.
