Whitney Houston once famously belted, “I believe the children are our future.” Kindergarten teaching assistant Jessica Vanessa felt the same way—that is, until she left the classroom and the bright young minds of tomorrow behind to begin her career as a professional twerker.
Yes, you read that correctly, a professional twerker. After advertisers stumbled across her wildly popular Vine account where she shakes her talents in 6-second bursts, the 22-year-old Florida woman abandoned her teaching career for Internet stardom. Given that she has a following of over two million Vine users, advertisers quickly began aligning themselves with her gyrating assets to the tune of six-figure checks. “What I make in six seconds would take me four months to make as a pre-k teacher at work,” Vanessa told The Daily Mail.
While you let that depressing statistic about teacher salaries wash over you, consider that things haven’t come too easily for Vanessa. Though she has embraced her talents and the money that comes with them—paying off her student loans and buying a new car—she’s endured scrutiny too.
Venssa has encountered her fair share of hatred and slut-shaming in the comment sections of her posts. The Florida woman said these comments have led to two major breakdowns. “Like, how can I have 1.9 million followers and feel this alone?” the dancer pondered existentially through tears in an interview.
Regardless, Vanessa plans to continue twerking with the support of her family. While she doesn’t miss the classroom, she does miss “the people I used to work with as well as my old kids,” but certainly those kids are not enough to compel her to abandon her literal buttload of money. We can only hope that all her former students learned from her was an entrepreneurial spirit and not any dance moves.
H/T Huffington Post | Photo via kowarski/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)