'We're all living the Olympics through TikTok now'

Paris: Some of the best fencers in the world were competing Sunday night at the Grand Palais, a 124-year-old exhibition hall with soaring arches that had been repurposed by organizers to serve as one of the most spectacular venues at the Paris Olympics.

The setting was so inspiring that Chris Matthews, a basketball trainer with more than 3 million followers on Instagram, and Jeenie Kwon, a fellow content creator with more than 10 million followers on her Jeenie Weenie YouTube account, wanted to get in on the action.

Behind a bank of bleachers, as several Olympic volunteers studied them with -- how to put this? -- great curiosity, Matthews and Kwon pretended to sword fight while a friend filmed them.

Matthews soon whipped out his iPhone to film himself.

"So, I just got to fencing," he said. "Wow!"

As part of its effort to engage with a younger audience, NBCUniversal has recruited a small army of online content creators to work with the network in Paris. The creators' mission. Film themselves visiting venues, chatting with athletes, cheering at events and otherwise enjoying the grandeur of the Games, all with exhaustingly theatrical joie de vivre.

"One of the most amazing things about the Olympics is that we, in some ways, use it as a little laboratory," said Geo Karapetyan, the senior vice president for platform partnerships at NBCUniversal. "And we're very fortunate to have forward-thinking senior executives who have allowed people to try new things."

Enter NBCUniversal's Paris Creator Collective, which, at 29 members, is larger than the athlete contingents from countries like Botswana, Estonia and Singapore.

"We're all just hardworking individuals," said Molly Carlson, a Canadian cliff diver and mental health advocate -- and former competitive diver -- whose online fans refer to themselves as the BraveGang. "And we're like, 'Oh, we can be part of a team, too!' It's like our own mini-Olympics."

On Sunday morning, Karapetyan met with Carlson and a few other members of the team -- the first of three waves of creators that will cycle through Paris over the course of the Olympics -- in the lobby of an upscale hotel in the 16th arrondissement.

He provided a rundown of the day ahead: a trip to NBCUniversal's studios at Musée de l'Homme, where the creators would have a chance to meet with la Phryge, an anthropomorphized red hat who has emerged as the surprisingly lovable mascot for the Games, before they scattered to various events that night.

Matthews and Kwon, for example, would be off to fencing, where medals would be awarded. (The group gasped in near unison at the prospect.) Lecrae, a rapper and actor whose given name is Lecrae Moore, had been assigned to an evening at swimming, where Léon Marchand, a 22-year-old Frenchman, seemed poised to win his first medal. ("Ohhh!") Carlson was bound for women's gymnastics. ("So fun!")

Kristy Scott, a fashion and lifestyle influencer who, along with her husband, Desmond, has more than 4 million subscribers on YouTube, was headed to beach volleyball. Desmond Scott had not made the trip.

"We've been traveling so much, he was like, 'You know what? You got this one,'" Kristy Scott said. "But now that I'm here, I've been sending him videos -- I went to swimming last night, and he loves swimming. He was like, 'I should've gone with you.'"

The creators are celebrities in their own hand-held, dopamine-filled world, each with millions of followers on various social media platforms.

(NBC is working with Meta, Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube and Overtime on the project.)

But they still seemed awe-struck when Michael Phelps, the decorated Olympic swimmer, discreetly strolled through the lobby in a baseball cap and sunglasses.

The Olympics are a new experience for most of them, and their goal is simple: act as surrogates for those at home who cannot experience the excitement for themselves.

"So many fans are telling me, 'I can't wait to follow your TikToks and live it through you,'" Carlson said. "We're all living the Olympics through TikTok now."

Here, in the flesh, was one particularly peppy corner of the internet sprung to life, a group of Gen Z-ers who would fail doping tests for rocket-fueled, prelunch enthusiasm even if they were at the DMV.

The collection of them in one place felt, in a way, like the influencer version of a blockbuster superhero crossover, if only one of the "Avengers"-- Jeenie Weenie in this case -- had chosen to accessorize with a stuffed puppy handbag instead of a battle-ax.

NBC is leaning into this new era. Savannah Sellers, a morning anchor on the network's streaming news channel, is hosting a nightly show on TikTok called "Spotlight on Paris," which broadcasts live from the Team USA House.

"This is still an NBC sports property, and this is still an NBC Olympics property," Sellers said. "But let's jazz it up a little bit and bring it to a new generation."

As for the creators, some of their usual powers are limited in Paris. Because their social media posts reach a global audience and because they are here on behalf of NBC, which has the broadcast rights for only the United States, the creators are restricted from filming any of the actual competitions. That means no breakdancing, no canoeing and no fencing -- unless, of course, they pretend to do it themselves.

They have embraced the challenge.

"It's fun because we have to use our personalities," Carlson said.

Last week, before the start of the Games, Tom Carles and Alex Durand, native Parisians and an inventive tag-team duo with an account on Instagram called AT Frenchies, posted up in an empty set of bleachers at the beach volleyball venue. Teams were practicing, which meant that Carles and Durand had to wait -- and wait some more -- for the court to clear out before they were able to capture their content.

The result -- a beautiful panoramic video of the venue in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, complete with their spellbound expressions -- has been viewed more than 20 million times.

"This might be the biggest opportunity we've had," Carles said.

During their tour of NBC's studios Sunday, the creators posed for selfies -- so many selfies -- on the network's prime-time set. Later, they were lured away from a 360-degree "Glam Cam" to mingle with la Phryge, whom the Paris Olympic organizing committee had dispatched for a meet-and-greet.

"Helloooo!" Carlson said as she approached la Phryge. "Can I hug you? Ahhhh, so cute!"

As they embraced, Carlson got a surprise: She discovered that an inflation system was buzzing inside the mascot's costume.

"Oh, my God! You're, like, vibrating!" Carlson said. "So fun. I love the look. High-five."

They high-fived.

Matthews stood nearby, waiting for his turn. He was kicking himself for forgetting to bring a basketball.

"I could've acted like I was teaching him to shoot," Matthews said. "Imagine if we had a rim and I could do a shooting video!"

Before the Olympics, Kwon got a test run of sorts when NBC sent her to the U.S. Olympic swimming trials in Indianapolis. The experience was both exhilarating and overwhelming, she said. So much content. So little time.

"I almost had a heart attack," she said.

So, for the Olympics, she brought her two-person production team with her to Paris. On Sunday, Kwon was sending them video clips from fencing.

After Yannick Borel of France scored the first touch against Mohamed El-Sayed of Egypt in a men's épée individual semifinal, Kwon covered her mouth with glee. She turned her iPhone camera on herself to capture the moment as the crowd around her began to chant the Frenchman's name: "Yann-ick! Yann-ick!"

"That's awesome," she said as she reviewed her footage. "I've got to use that for sure."