81 year old a global social media sensation

Ian Smith from Snettisham has over 1.5 million followers, his online videos are positive and uplifting

"One of my videos has 54 million views, which I find astonishing really," Ian tells me, as we chat in his kitchen where it all happens.

A few years ago Ian started posting online to promote his novel, but for the past 18 months has been recording messages of motivation and positivity.

"I went from sort of 50 followers to 10 thousand, and then it went haywire, and I have now got somewhere over 1.5 million followers, I'm still not quite sure why!"

"It's quite upsetting that so many people in the world need help," he continues, "I just have a dream that if I could get to 10 million positive followers, that I might make a difference.

"I've always been quite positive, and I just feel that the world's got very negative."

The retired dentist now posts twice a day, we chat about where he gets inspiration from.

"Different things. You can have things like songs, such as The Impossible Dream, and you think where can I take that. Other things I read, I like the sentiment, but don't like the way it's put - so I adapt it.

"Sometimes it takes me ten minutes, sometimes a few hours. Other times I can be up until the early hours!

"The reach is staggering, I do a live every Thursday for about half an hour, and people come join from all over the world, for some of them it's the middle of the night."

He goes on to tell me about today's theme, "I'm working on something along the lines of: all you need is one person in your life who says - you've got this, I believe in you."

I ask what that feels like to have hundreds of thousands of people listening to his words.

"I'm shocked more than anything that as an 81 year old I'm doing this. I mean let's be honest, TikTok's for kids - not for old people, so I feel quite surprised I suppose.

"It's all a mystery to me, but I love it, I love doing it and it's great fun."

We think it's positively brilliant!