Linda Roper, 70, known as “Grandma YoYo,” rose to TikTok fame in 2019 after she posted a video saying she wanted to get TikTok famous as a joke.
A TikTok grandma who grabbed the hearts of users on the platform is now asking for the public’s help as she lives out her last days battling lung cancer.
Linda Roper, 71, known as “Grandma YoYo,” rose to fame on TikTok in 2019 after she posted a video jokingly saying she wanted to get TikTok-famous. But, then she did. She ended up sharing a video of some of the crafts she made from her South Dakota home and it went viral.
She's since shared funny videos, videos of her getting a tattoo, dancing and sharing her home and life.
“I didn't expect nothing. I didn't know what it was even about. It's been amazing,” Roper told InsideEdition.com.
She had already been diagnosed with cancer in 2018 before she started the page, but hadn’t let that be the only focus of it.
In February 2020, Roper could no longer hold the phone for videos, so her family is helping post updates for her. Now, she’s asking her fans to help make her dying wish to stay at home in hospice care come true.
“She's given so much to people, which sounds weird to say because she's just this person on a screen, but people have connected with her,” Crystal Dvorak, Roper’s daughter, told InsideEdition.com.
As of Monday, a GoFundMe the family started already raised more than $12,000 of the family’s $15,000 goal.
Dvorak hopes to eventually start a non-profit in her mother’s name. She said she feels supported because her mom has brought so much light to the lives others through TikTok, and so many people have reached out with messages of love.
"She's a vibrant person, but sometimes that was kept within the family, sometimes within just her home,” Dvorak said of her mom’s fame. “So to see her reach out and touch all these people around the world, it's made me feel not alone.”
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