East Meadow grandma is TikTok famous, thanks to grandson

The 78-year-old grandma from East Meadow leers at the camera, a teacup in hand.

"I thought 'happiness' starts with an 'h,'" she says. "But mine ... starts with 'u.'"

#pickuplines #GrannyGotGame

The granny is Leonora "Nora" Sangalang — "Mama," as her family calls her — grandmother of six and star of the viral @ourfilipinograndma Tik Tok and Instagram accounts, which combined have nearly 1 million followers around the world.

Sangalang dances. She works in the kitchen. She partakes in the latest TikTok challenge. Some of the videos are spontaneous, but most are scripted by her grandson and manager, Jeffrey Juarez, who wrote the nine-part and counting #GrannyGotGame series.

(You didn’t really think those pickup lines were the brainchild of a churchgoing septuagenarian Roman Catholic matriarch who met her husband of 52 years in high school, did you?)

The accounts were created by Juarez, 25, who began making internet videos soon after being furloughed at the start of the coronavirus pandemic from his job as a financial analyst in Manhattan. His grandma happened to be in a few of them — and those were the most popular ones. So in December, he made accounts with her as the star.

"She gets so many messages and comments just saying, ‘Oh, you remind me so much of my mom or my grandma,’" Juarez said in an interview. "Like, 'She passed away X amount of years ago, and it really just makes me feel like she’s still here with us,' or 'I feel like if my grandma lived during this time, she would be the same exact way.’"

In those early videos, Sangalang recalled in the interview, she was wearing house clothes and hadn’t dressed to be on camera, since she didn’t know she was going to be.

"I said, ‘Oh, my God, why did you do that? Look at me!’" she said.

Now, she said, "When he wants me to do videos, then he will ask me to get ready, and of course, I prepare myself."

The videos star Sangalang predominantly in the family home but also have taken place at Eisenhower Park, the local Lidl supermarket, and in computer-generated scenes such as at the dentist and giving a TED Talk.

In another viral video, Sangalang whistles to signal breakfast, readies the pot, and Juarez leaps out of bed and appears to fly up the stairs to join.

#grandmascooking #filipinograndmas

Some of the most popular videos are the #GrannyGotGame series, in which Sangalang lobs conversational openers, with a hip-hop rimshot.

(Not that she needs them in real life: Sangalang met her husband, Rimberto, also 78, back in their native Philippines. The family has lived in the United States since the 1980s, and on Long Island since 1998. Rimberto wants to return to the Philippines, but the couple is staying in the United States because he’s sick and needs dialysis.)

Sangalang's global fame has resonated locally — half her followers are in the United States — with the balance around the world, Juarez said. Her viral accounts have been featured on BuzzFeed, CNN and other international outlets.

Sangalang said she is surprised at how popular the videos have become.

In April, two blocks away from the family’s home, Sangalang was picking up blood pressure medication at a CVS pharmacy when a worker called her by name. Sangalang thought the prescription was ready, but it was just someone who knew her from TikTok.

"‘We are fans of your TikTok,'" Sangalang said the worker told her. "I said, ‘Oh, my God,’" Sangalang recalled.

The worker added, she said, "‘Any more videos? We are watching.’"

From then on, when she’d go to that CVS, she’d be greeted with: "How is the celebrity doing?"

And later that month, there was the surprise when her granddaughter’s Miller Place High School field hockey team asked to meet Sangalang and then several in the group asked whether they could take a photo together. They did.

"‘We love you. We love you, Grandma,’" Sangalang recalled them saying. "I said, ‘Oh, my God.'"

Sangalang says she loves being a mother, a grandmother and a great-grandmother to her younger relatives.

"They all love me, because I love them. It’s nice, the feeling, being a grandmother with your children and your grandkids," she said.

Juarez said the account is clearly influenced by the family’s Filipino roots — in a few of the videos, Sangalang speaks Tagalog, while in others, she does a viral Filipino dance called Otso Otso — but her appeal is universal.

"You don’t have to be Filipino to kind of fall in love with the account or be a fan of our videos," he said.

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.