Endless Thread - Half a million eyes are on TikTok's "tunnel girl"

Episode Date: February 2, 2024

In 2022, a TikTok creator who identifies herself as "Kala" began digging. What followed was an increasingly viral series of TikToks chronicling the efforts of Kala, who some on the internet dubbed "tunnel girl", as she excavated and constructed a tunnel system under her suburban home. Her more than half-million followers watched and weighed in with support, suggestions and at times, concern. That is, until a stop-work order halted the project in its tracks late last year. Producer Katelyn Harrop joins Endless Thread hosts Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson to look at yet another tunneling phenomenon that has taken the internet by storm.

Support for endless thread comes from MathWorks, creator of MATLAB and Simulink Software, to design and develop engineered systems, accelerating the pace of discovery in engineering and science. Learn more at Mathworks.com. Support for WBUR comes from Is Business Broken, a podcast from the Mayrotra Institute at Boston University that explores questions like, why is innovation in healthcare so hard? Is ESG just greenwashing? of course, is business broken? Listen, wherever you get your podcasts. WBUR Podcasts, Boston. Producer Caitlin Harrop, thank you for joining us for our second episode of Tunnel Talk, the podcast. About tunnels. We talk about tunnels.

Of various depths to various locations. There's nowhere I would rather be for my inaugural, endless thread episode. than here with the tunnels. That's an honor, honestly. Okay, Amory and Ben. Yes. You are both homeowners, correct? Yes.

The bank owns my home, but yeah. The bank also owns my home, but yes, sure. Okay. You are not renting your homes. No. You live in buildings with your names on them. And I want you to think of the single most ambitious home improvement project you've ever taken on.

I've replaced parts of a deck. I've installed a new sink, which was a little scary. Yeah. Well, I don't get credit for this, but where I record, Enlist Thread, is inside of my home studio, our home studio. We basically built a room within a room with a lot of insulation. Wow. And in doing so, we probably, like, decreased the value of the home because we made this room smaller. and less practical for anyone but us.

But hey. I love that. Okay. I would like to see your deck improvement and home studio and raise you a suburban tunnel project in Virginia that has captured the attentions, the minds, in some cases, the hearts, and in other cases, the fervor of TikTok.

Oh, are you ready? Oh, yes. I'm ready. All right. Here we go. I'm talking about the TikTok account at engineer dot everything. It's run by a woman who identifies herself as Kella. Hi, I'm Kella, and today I have to show you.

But she is also called more widely on the internet Tunnel Girl or Tunnel Lady. So I remember you telling us about this in an endless thread meeting. But then, just in the past few weeks, she has made her way or her content has made its way from TikTok where I do not. mercifully spend a lot of time and onto Reddit where I do spend too much time. Where I mercifully don't spend time. She's cross-platform. She's cross-platforms. She's omnipotent.

So, Kella, she has almost half a million followers on TikTok right now. And these people have been following her now multi-year effort to build a tunnel system under her suburban home. Oh, my God. So to start this journey, we need to go back to 2022 when Kella posted what appears to be her first video announcing this plan. I am about to embark on a new and complex project. I'm planning to construct a storm shelter off the side of my basement. So in this TikTok, she shows us what looks to be a very solid concrete basement wall,

where she says she's going to cut out a door and effectively begin excavating to build this storm shelter. As you do. And she says she plans to build a ramp up to a window on another wall in her basement so that she can get all the rubble she'll be excavating out of the basement. But of course, the basement window is 14 feet below ground. So she'll also need to build a crane with a bucket to bring all the rubble from the window up to ground. This project is going to be enormously expensive and have zero. zero return on investment. It's something that I wanted to do and it should be fun. This is a dumb project, but I really wanted to do it. Yeah. This is literally a money pit,

a money tunnel pit in the ground. Their ROI is her satisfaction with her own tunneling skills. Or like her mental health. This is her workout for the next however long. Yes. And this is sort of how we jump into this tunnel project. It's very like we're just in. There isn't a lot of background. Like, we're in it. And it sounds kind of technical, right? Yeah. Yeah, I don't, I wouldn't know other than just forward. Start digging and if stuff starts cracking and rumbling, stop digging. This is only the beginning of what ends up being a very technical and complex project that evolves from what Kella first calls a storm shelter, as we just heard, to what she starts calling a tunnel system, a quote, secret labyrinth under my house, and a suburban mine.

And by the way, Kella does not appear to have any significant formal engineering training as it relates to this kind of project. And based on the videos, it seems like she's doing much of the work alone. Okay. Perfect. So how are we feeling about this so far? I'm worried that Kella is in need of another hobby. I'm worried we will find her under a pile of rubble called her house. Yeah, what we see in the weeks and months following the posting of that first TikTok in October 2020 is a bunch of videos.

Like, I mean more than 200 TikToks. Oh, my God. Where Kella takes her followers along for her building project. And we're talking about excavating. We're talking about building rebrar structures. I tied a thousand feet of rebar with 500 feet of wire and my hands are incredibly tired. We're talking about pouring concrete ceilings. I'm in a tunnel with 5,000 pounds of wet concrete over my head.

And the only thing separating me from becoming a pancake is my own engineering. We're talking about welding. that is happening underground in this basement or sub-basement system. I'm covering my safety boots with my pants to avoid burns. And as she continues to post, she gains more and more traction. And there's this very dedicated foundational followers who are very invested in this project. Foundation of followers. What's that intentional?

Well done. Who's to say? Who's to say? More tunnel puns to come. And just to like give you a. an idea of how this project is developing. Here's a little bit of a tour she gave on TikTok in September of 2023. The entrance tunnel goes down a decline 30 feet in and 10 feet down.

The first chamber is 22 feet below grade and is approximately 10 feet by 6 feet. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I'm thinking, like, because I didn't hear a, strong statement from her in the beginning about what she hopes to do in the tunnel system. Like, yes, this is a lot of work, but just picture me in the tunnel years from now doing my tunnel things and what that big dream, what that vision really looks like. It feels like that the real tunnel she's building is this TikTok following.

That is like a huge question that's being asked, right, is why is she doing this? and there are a lot of commenters with a lot of questions and theories. And Keller doesn't say a ton about this, but when she has responded to comments, she basically says, like, hey, I sit at a computer for my day job all day. I'm restless. I like big projects. Why not build a storm shelter? Like, basically, I can so I will.

Okay. And this is actually where I want to get into the TikTok community response to Tunnel Girls project. Okay. Because it is both tight-knit and kind of far-reaching. And in the early days of the project, they seem to kind of fall into these three major camps. Camp one is, this is incredible to watch, keep it up. Very positive, very inspired.

Camp two is the kind of what is this woman doing in Y camp. And Camp three is, hey, I'm a union employed welder. Have you considered using XYZ material and technique, etc., etc. Like applicable suggestions for the work. I like that because it's like she's already in deep, you know? So you may as well try to help her make this successful or at least not hurt herself or die in the process.

Wow. Totally. Okay. And in many ways, it feels almost kind of quaint, right? Like everyone is kind of just in awe of this really ambitious project and inspired that Kella is working so hard and teaching herself so many new skills and doing it so independently. Again, we're kind of watching her learn and educate herself on electric work, on geology, all this stuff.

And overall, many commenters are, like, really rooting for Kella and her success in this project. But it's not long into the tunnel project before a couple other types of comments start popping up. What kind of comments start popping up? Okay. There are some significant questions about, you guessed it, the safety of this project. and also who else might be impacted. More on that after the break. At Radio Lab, we love nothing more than nerding out about science, neuroscience, chemistry.

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There's various, you know, camps responding to the tunnel system on TikTok via the comments. We don't have a lot of information about why Tunnel Lady is tunneling. She just, it's, you know, because she can. For the joy of tunneling. For the joy of tunneling. And now some people are starting to say, hold on a second. I'm worried about the impact of this. Yeah.

And as you can imagine, these comments are not without merit. Like, for instance, in July of last year, there was actually a fire in the tunnel, which, of course, Kella chronicled on her TikTok. Oh, God. Last night I was well done. some steel forms and the rebar and membrane caught fire. I was able to put it out quickly with an extinguisher and the damage is not very severe. And there are other points of concern from commenters such as her performing electrical work without the supervision of a licensed electrician. That one was

very concerning to several commenters. Oh, no. No, that is the home repair that you absolutely outsource. There are a couple instances where she describes sparking or smoking power strips. There's some falling rock. You get it. Oh my God. Do we know how close her home is to her neighbors? So that is the other big thread that people are concerned about. Okay. There are comments essentially asking, do your neighbors know about this project? And is it dangerous or at least disruptive to them? And also, And this is a question I definitely had as a journalist following this project. Do you have the appropriate permits to build a tunnel system under your house? No. What are the permits for that?

There's no permits for that. So that is where a lot of the questions are coming up. And she tends to not respond to a lot of these comments, or at least at this point recently, when I've looked back at comments, there haven't been a lot of responses. And that is about all we know. Oh, my God. Wow. Please let me.

This, like, makes me wonder what all my neighbors are doing. I'm like, oh, God, who's doing something crazy that I don't know about? Right. So I want to jump to the end of last year. That's when Kella's online attention outside of TikTok gained sort of a new level, some more traction. Okay. Kella's building, building, building.

By this point, there are several kind of branches or chambers to the tunnel system under construction. Oh, my God. She's harvesting some of the stone she's excavating to save for a potential future building project and says she hopes to build a castle someday. Oh, my. And a few Reddit threads are starting to pop up. Ben, you said you saw some of them. You brought them to me. Yes.

And they're questioning the reason for the tunnels and the safety and legality of the project, right? All of these things that have started to happen on TikTok. And in November, Kella gave an interview to NBCNews.com. And in it, she basically said that the tunnels are a passion project, meant to keep her busy. She describes a respectful relationship with her neighbors and said they were all well aware of, quote, her crazy antics. She also declined to get into the specifics of any permits. She may or may not have received for the project, but said she is, quote, following the rules for building emergency shelters in her local jurisdiction. Does anyone have a guess of where this is going?

It doesn't seem like it's going to turn out well for Kella. Yeah, that jurisdiction is coming for Kella. It's coming for her tunnel. Eventually, you get popular enough on the internet for doing something that is probably not up to code, as folks who may have recently listened to our other tunnel episode. Yeah. Some government organization is going to show up at your house

and ask very direct questions. Yeah. And things mostly seem to at first continue relatively business as usual. She's, you know, welding in the tunnel system. She's making videos about construction projects. Commenters are continuing to ask about the legality and safety of her project and also cheering her on. And then on December 28th,

Kella posts a TikTok, which is essentially a live action reenactment. And I'm actually going to have you to watch the video and describe it for us because it's really something. Yay. Good morning. I need a moment to pull over. Just give me a second. Okay, she's like dressed up. She has a... Why is she in a Tesla? Are you sure? That's what they said. They're from the city.

She has like lipstick and sunglasses on. Yeah, I'm not available right now. Can you see if they'll come back tomorrow? Yeah, 10 o'clock, that's fine. Oh, God, head in hand. Oh, my God. This is not good. I don't know if you remember me.

I'm Jack Smith. Yes. Building official. This is Jimmy Jones with the zoning department. I'm Brian with inspections. What can I do for you? We have some complaints. Basically, have some construction going on.

And we were just here, basically, to find out there is and see what needs to be done. Uh-oh. They're on to her. voice actor reading actual. Oh my God. That you're pulling stuff out of the basement. Yeah, a little bit. That you're pulling stuff out of the basement.

Yeah, a little bit. This music is a lot. Wow. So they did give me a stop work order and are requiring Stop work order. Evaluation by a professional engineer. Okay. Fortunately, contrary to few rumors here,

it is constructed entirely below the slab of my house. And it shouldn't be too hard to get the permit. and approval. So we'll be working on that. This is a heavy production of a recreation of what amounts to a phone call from the local municipality and apparently a visit. So, I mean, the big climax of this video is a stop work order from where she lives. But she's so hopeful that everything will be up to code, that it's like, yeah, stop, work order. They're going to come check it out, but no big deal. So that video that we all just

watched together, December 28, 2023, and after it was posted, Kella went dark. Days stretched into weeks, no new videos. And I reached out to Kella for an interview, by the way, but she didn't respond. So at this point, we don't really know what's going on. As you can imagine, there were and are a slew of theories going around online. Many amateur internet sleuths have been trying to learn more. And as we all know, it always works out well when amateur internet sleuths try to find out more. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it does.

That's true. Sometimes it does. But there's also been a reporter who's been looking into this. And her name is Ara Bogato. And she posted to TikTok with her findings. A few days after Kella posted that video. the one about the stop work order in December, Ara made a TikTok reporting that she had contacted some of Keller's neighbors,

many of whom she says are Central American migrants or first-generation immigrants, many of whom speak Spanish. And she said that of the neighbor she contacted, none of them knew about the tunnel project. The secret tunnel is indeed a secret tunnel, except on TikTok where it is very much not secret. Yeah. Correct.

Here's more on that. They're really worried about their health and their safety. They talked to me about noise, like tremendous noise, essentially noise pollution and shaking, like just random shaking in the ground that they didn't realize where it was coming from. And several neighbors expressed to me that they were worried about reporting anything because they don't want to get entangled with immigration authorities and they don't want to be deported. it. So that's just a bit of the reporting era has done. She's also had a couple other videos that folks can check out with more reporting. And for a while, that's kind of where everything

sat. Of course, many people on TikTok were responding to her reporting, some questioning it, some thanking her for bringing these concerts to light, which of course, as the three of us know, is very commonly the conflicting response journalists receive. And of course, at this time, people are also theorizing on their own on TikTok. Anyway, at this point, it's mid-January. And I'm thinking maybe this is it. It's been weeks since Tunnel Girl posted, right? Uh-huh.

And maybe she's done. Maybe the stop work order was the end of it, and maybe we'll never hear from her again. Tunnel complete. Tunnel complete. And that was true. until two weeks ago. Dun, dun,

done. What? I was on vacation and I'm literally smooth brain scrolling on TikTok when Kella popped back up on my FYP.

Oh my God, she's back. I was floored. And at the time of this recording, she has posted three videos since January 18th. Okay. In the first, she's listening to the Eagles

dirty laundry and doing a puzzle. And the caption of the TikTok says, keeping busy. Oh, my God. So passive aggressive towards the stop work order. Another TikTok user commented and said, make Tenel Talk great again. And she responded and said, I will on a shovel cleanse at the moment. Oh my God. Okay. Then last week, she posted a video that, as you both know, despite me being on vacation, I immediately had to send to you both. Yes. In which Keller, lip sinks to My Immortal by Evanescence. In the snow. Yeah, she's lying in the snow for part of it.

But at the end of it, she is indeed standing in what appears to be the tunnel. Although she is not in her usual construction garb and she doesn't appear to be working on the tunnel in the video. And that caption simply says, soon the snow will change to rain. Oh, my God. So she's back on TikTok. But as of now, we do not have any tunnel updates to her account. Okay.

So she hasn't posted anything about her tunnel since she posted the video about receiving a stop work order. But Caitlin, while you were on vacation, we got an email to endless thread at WBUR.org. And, you know, we did mention last week that we were going to have another tunnel episode this week. and a listener named Suzanne, a true gem of a listener. She actually emailed us, and she was like, I think you're going to talk about Tunnel Lady. And she basically said, I live in the same town as Tunnel Lady, which we know because of the stop work order.

And Suzanne offered, she was like, oh my God, I've been obsessed with this story, as have so many people. And I am willing to help you on your question. quest of understanding what is happening. Okay, so this is your boots on the ground Virginia reporting team coming to live from outside Tunnel Girls' house. And she went on a drive with her daughter Caroline to see if she could see anything related

to the tunnel project just by like driving by on the street. Let me describe the neighborhood for you. It is a small area with a, um, A lot of townhouses and a lot of split-level or ranch-style homes. The lots are not big. Most people have fenced in yards. Her driveway has cars parked in it, but no other sign of construction whatsoever. All the lights in her house seem to be off and there's like curtains in front of windows.

No one has checked to see why we're sitting in front of her house. But I would expect that if we sat here long enough, they would, it's the kind of neighborhood where you probably do know. know your neighbors or at least are aware of your neighbors. Huge thank you to Suzanne and Caroline for, you know, scoping out the Tunnel Girl situation for us. But for now, that's what we know. No big signs of construction at the house. And the rest, we can only glean from Tunnel Girls TikTok. Amory, Ben, knowing everything we know, is this where you expected this story to end?

I don't think it has ended. I think this is where we are pausing and bringing it to people to say, hey, do it this tunnel story what you will. But, you know, the interesting thing about it taking off on social media is that now the neighbors who are too afraid to say something don't have to say anything. So I feel like in some ways this is just the beginning. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. I feel the same way.

And I think there will be more tunnel updates. on TikTok and elsewhere. But I would really love to talk to Kella. Yes. Kella, if you hear this, we would love to talk to you. Yeah, please get in touch. For me, I mean, the unfolding of this story with what we know so far is kind of a reminder of a couple things.

One is that the internet has always and will always love an opportunity to escape into someone else's fantastical hobby project. If you want another one, check out 2022's Eel Pit Guy on TikTok. Give that a Google. Oh, boy. You can imagine. And another thing is that this is kind of a story of internet hubris. Like, in some ways, Tunnel Girls account is this cool community for people who really want to share

skills and expertise and support. Yeah. But then on the other hand, when you zoom out, you also hear these concerns about maybe there's more than meets the eye here. So I guess we'll just have to see what comes next. To be continued, I hope. Can I just say, Kella, I have a bathroom from like 1970 something that desperately needs updating. And I think you should let the tunnel go.

Come on up to Massachusetts, smash my bathroom to bits and rebuild it. I've got your next project ready to go for you. A pivot. I love it. A pivot. Exactly. Kella, get in touch. Tell us your side of the story.

We'd love to hear it. And Caitlin, thank you so much for bringing us down this particular tunnel. Caitlin's on that nosy neighbor beat and we love it. Love it. You too, Suzanne. That is the reputation I have always hoped to have as far enough. Really, Drudal is. are just the nosy neighbors of every aspect of life.

Yeah. This episode was produced by Caitlin Harrop and co-hosted by Caitlin Harrop and Ben Brock Johnson and Emery Sewardson. It was sound designed by Emily Jenkowski. The rest of our team is Grace Tatter, Dean Russell, Matt Reed, Paul Vicus, Sumitajoshi, and CCU, our new fellow. If you have a crazy story or a tunnel story that you want us to tell, hit us up. You can email endless thread at wbUR.org, just like Suzanne did.

And we'll talk to you next week. Bye. Bye.