Social Study: Connor Clary at Home in the French Quarter
Connor Clary in his French Quarter courtyard
May 2026Social media wunderkind, international influencer, emerging potter: This Internet sensation has found his calling in the Quarter.
– by Doug Brantley
photos by Ellis Anderson
This column is underwritten in part by Karen Hinton & Howard Glaser
Active on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube or TikTok?
Then you’ve likely bumped into Connor Clary, either online, or on the streets of the French Quarter – where he’s often spotted and pursued by fawning fangirls.
“I can tell when it’s going to happen. I have a very specific demographic,” says the 26-year-old, impish influencer of his million-plus followers.
“Millennial, Gen X white women, for some reason. The Quarter is full of that. If I see a large group of them, in their 30s or 40s, I’m like, ‘OK, here we go.’”
Clary’s famed for his humorous, often-biting spins on pop culture and politics – ranking and skewering everything from red carpet fashions to Pride merch collections to White House gift-shop gewgaws. He also chronicles life in New Orleans, where he’s resided since 2025, and the growing line of ceramics he produces out of Mid-City’s Crescent City Clayworks.
“It’s been like that for a bit,” says the unassuming Kansas City transplant. “I grew up a paid child actor. I did commercials, radio and some professional theater productions.
“So, I’m used to being stared at, though I was always shy one-on-one with people.”
Indeed, huddled together in his small pottery studio, it’s hard to secure eye contact with the waify 130-pound Internet phenom (“I’ve gained 10 since moving here”), who continually twirls a piece of wire around his finger over the course of our conversation.
Pieces almost ready for the bisque firing in Connor Clary’s studio
Recently finished pieces in Connor Clary’s studio
It’s an attribute both endearing and damning, causing Clary to pivot early on in college from an envisioned journalism career.
“My social anxieties were so bad I couldn’t interview people. So, I dropped out.”
That failure, however, paved the way for Clary’s extraordinary success. Part of his journalism course curriculum had been to create a social media profile.
On a whim, he googled, “What’s the easiest way to become an influencer?”
“I found some article about TikTok being this up-and-coming thing,” he says, and started putting random ramblings on whatever popped to mind out into the ecosphere.
“I thought, ‘OK, I can do this. What do I need school for?’”
Still, he stuck with his studies at the University of Missouri, changing his major to social services, a seemingly more practical career path.
But that led to soul-crushing stints at a rape crisis center, a nursing home memory-care facility and a domestic violence shelter working in admissions.
“It was my job, as a 20-year-old, to decide if women being threatened with murder and stuff could come into our shelter and not die,” he dourly recalls.
“I thought, ‘I’m going to go crazy if I keep doing this.’”
Seeking a creative outlet for counterbalance, he joined a community ceramics studio. He rekindled a childhood passion for potting, which he’s practiced since age 8, attending annual summer how-to camps and refining his skills throughout high school.
Clary’s father is a self-employed, much-sought-after graphic designer and his parents met in a college art dorm, so growing up, Clary was encouraged to explore his own artistic pursuits and individuality.
“They signed me up for every possible thing, every sport except football,” he says. “I didn’t like any of them.”
“They eventually let me stop sports and signed me up for dance class, because my mom said she wanted me to meet boys like me.”
It was that nurturing environment he returned to when Covid crept in, pivoting once again, moving back home and taking courses online. To fill idle hours, he turned to TikTok, where he started creating short videos and identifying emerging trends on the burgeoning platform.
“At the time, listicle videos were doing really well, and they still do sometimes,” Clary recounts. “The first one I did that got lots of hits was ranking the Christian décor in my parents’ house.”
Coming in at 1st place, he deadpanned in what has since become his trademark Midwestern monotone, is this stained glass of ‘Madonna and Child’ that I bought during my pray-the-gay-away phase and hung in my window to help cope with unholy thoughts. It didn’t work, but she sure did her best.”
The 42-second clip racked up more than a million views in just three days.
Soon after, TikTok implemented a new monetization program, compensating posters for the number of clicks their content received. In a short time, it was paying off in a big way for Clary, who began raking in several thousand dollars a month with his pithy posts.
So much for social work.
In no time, he was garnering lucrative brand deals with corporate giants, such as lululemon, Igloo, Jergens Lotion and Tubi, creating freelance content for Yahoo and dabbling in political consulting.
“My most recurring deal is with a sex-toy company,” he notes. “They keep running my ads in perpetuity, so I get money for that every month.
“It fluctuates dramatically. I’ll go months when I make no money at all. And then I’ll have times where I’ll make $10-, $20-, $30,000. It depends on what’s going on.”
At his zenith, Clary was knocking out three videos a day; today it’s around two a week. They focus more on his popular ceramics and spot-on takes on New Orleans (Ten out of five starrrs), He landed in the city when his boyfriend, John, scored a position as social media manager for a national current-affairs magazine located in the CBD.
The couple initially rented in the Four Winds building on Baronne, just off Canal, thinking it would be convenient to John’s job. But they quickly soured on its location.
“The apartment was totally fine,” Clary contends. “But we were stuck up in this tower and didn’t know anyone. There was no sense of community.”
Once their lease was up, the twosome set their sights on the French Quarter, where they now live in the former childhood home of late fitness guru Richard Simmons. They have fallen in love – and in line – with their new neighborhood.
“Living in the Quarter, we know all our neighbors and hang out with them,” Clary says. “I walk down the street and am constantly bumping into people I know, which can be annoying sometimes, but there’s a rhythm to it.
“The architecture here is unlike anywhere else. And the amount of greenery and foliage. People who live in the Quarter really care about their properties and making it a beautiful neighborhood.”
And it’s proved perfect positioning for both of their jobs, each within easy walking distance of their apartment.
At Clary’s ceramics studio, he’s churning out 100 to 200 pieces a month – spoon rests, salt cellars, bud vases – which sell quickly online. He also offers items locally at the Garden District’s Judy at the Rink, buffering his otherwise unpredictable income.
That too has its rough patches.
“Sometimes things turn out really well and then sometimes, like now, I make 100 spoon rests and they all look like shit,” he laments, pointing out minuscule bubbling in the glazing.
“I don’t think anyone who does pottery professionally would say it’s relaxing. It’s kind of stressful and agitating. When you do it so much, it’s like any job.
“But I need something to sell, and I feel like I can do this forever.”
And it feels like he’s finally found his footing and forever home in the French Quarter.
Following a binge of old Paul Prudhomme YouTubes (He’s the Bob Ross of Louisiana cooking), he acquired a copy of the legendary chef’s “Louisiana Kitchen” cookbook and took to his social feeds to make his first pot of red beans and rice (I’m going to ‘Julie & Julia’ my way through this thing).
With John a vegetarian, he swapped out the recipe’s signature ham hocks with meatless sausage and a few glugs of Liquid Smoke, then dished it up on one of his hand-formed pottery pieces (Six out of five starrrs).
Not long after, the couple attended a Krewe du Vieux party at neighbor/culinary queen Poppy Tooker’s place, where red beans were, naturally, on the offer.
“John was like, ‘Why are these so good?’
“He told me I can cook with ham hocks now.”
