There is a concept for the type of videos that Amadou Elizabeth, who garnered a following on TikTok as @realjadrolita or just Jarvis, makes. Typically, she wears a suit not so dissimilar to a Marvel superhero. But hers, unlike Spiderman’s spider webs, is covered with a robot’s body parts. She walks up to random strangers and introduces herself as Jadrolita, a self-help artificial intelligence. She is an impression of Alita, the protagonist in the 2019 Hollywood sci-fi flick, Alita: Battle Angel.
Jadrolita goes on spy missions and does security work for high-network individuals. She does adverts for itel’s Play Station copy RS4.
As many TikTokers do, Jarvis also posts other kinds of content: dance videos with her friends, come-with-me videos, day-in-the-life videos, skits, collaborations. When she posts as Jadrolita, her followers call it AI content.
A few months ago, she started collaborating with another TikTok user, Habeeb Hamzat, known as Peller. She joined one of his live streams, and they started talking.
His content is sharply different from hers. In his videos, his braggadocio is palpable. Many times, he is dancing shirtless, starstruck by famous musicians who join his streams: Davido, Kizz Daniel, Tiwa Savage. When he met Olamide, he threw himself on the floor from excitement. When he hit 5 million followers, he wore a dress, lit a massive candle on baked garri and celebrated with his friends. He posted a video seeking a first-class graduate to be his personal assistant, partly trolling the idea that doing well at school guarantees success. That was his brand.
In the videos Jarvis made with Peller, they remake love scenes from classic Nollywood movies. In some, Peller hypes her as he teaches her to dance. There are videos of him hugging her tight, holding her, trolling her, begging her to date him, trying to kiss her.
In August, after he had started calling her baby and the internet had decided they were dating, a video
But as all of this happened, Jadrolita took a back seat. Critics have argued that Jarvis lost her way when she started hanging out with Peller. “One day, we will discuss how this lady reduced herself from a viral content creator who broke through a completely new and unique niche to a mere toy paraded by Peller up and down,” a user posted on X.
“While their love story is complex, they are still young and figuring things out together, and that mutual understanding and happiness is what truly matters,” Chioma Anyanwu, the content creator AnChi Vibes, who is also Senior TikTok manager of the news aggregator Pulse, said. This year she interviewed Peller and spoke to him about their relationship.
As Peller and Jarvis have become an item, brands have rushed to them. Peller has promoted the new Alakada film coming out in December and many songs from upcoming musicians who he tagged. On TikTok, it is harder to know which content is sponsored or not, as the platform doesn’t incentivise creators to reveal this. But many TikTokers are paid to promote songs they use in dance videos. Both Peller and Jarvis posted about the new Kizz Daniel song “Marhaba,” but only Peller posted about the Alakada movie. Peller has 5.5 million followers. Jarvis has 3.4 million.
It is not uncommon for couples who are TikTokers to create content together. But Yinka Owate, who used to be very active on the platform but now works as a journalist with Okay Africa, said that for sustainable growth to happen, the content has to be the reason for engagement and not the relationship.
“Right now, people are engaging with them, and brands are chasing them because they are the hot cake on TikTok at the moment,” Owate said. “I don’t know how long that will last. It is a ‘couple thing’ at the moment. It’s not a ‘content thing.’”
Her observation is also similar to Anyanwu’s of the reason for their engagement. She said that the person who suffers if the relationship ends, many times is the one with the weaker individual brand. ”I have seen couples come together to build relationships and grow, especially on TikTok. This fosters growth, mutual learning, and support but poses risks if the relationship falters, leaving the person without the stronger individual brand vulnerable,” she said.
But Anyanwu added that reviving Jadrolita is a decision only Jarvis will make for herself. “If Jarvis feels the need to focus more on her personal brand, she should consider feedback, as she knows what’s best for her. Ultimately, other people’s opinions shouldn’t dictate her choices,” she said.
In a BBC interview, Peller responded to backlash that Jarvis’s branding has changed since she started hanging out with him, saying that he is not “using Jarvis. We are not using each other.”
Jarvis recently said that she stopped posting AI content because she has a tumour growing on her jawline.
But in October, she made a video as Jadrolita. “It has come to my notice that you all are looking for me,” she said in the video. “I’m here. I’ve always been here. Just that my human self has been exploring so wild she forgot about me…I will be activating from now on. Are you ready for me? Because I am coming for all of you.”
