From strict host parents to cheerleading: how Féline Vermeulen went viral with her American exchange

With more than 60 thousand followers on TikTok, Tilburg student Féline Vermeulen (21) shares remarkable stories about her American exchange year. From cheerleading and football games to strict host parents and drama at school: ‘Sometimes it really felt like I was in Mean Girls.’

For Féline Vermeulen, a student of Entrepreneurship & Business Innovation at Tilburg University, the fascination with America started early. As a teenager, she spent hours watching Dutch YouTubers like Nina Houston and Joy Bosz, who lived in the United States. ‘I was really obsessed with that American high school culture,’ she says with a laugh. ‘Movies like High School Musical, cheerleaders, football games, everything seemed amazing to me.’

After saving for years for her dream, Féline left for the United States in 2023 for a high school exchange year. For ten months, she lived with her host parents and their son in a quiet neighborhood in Indiana. There, she attended the local Franklin County High School, became a cheerleader and experienced daily American family life up close.

‘A rollercoaster’

Although her exchange started like a dream, the year also had difficult moments. ‘Sometimes it really felt like a rollercoaster,’ Féline says. Especially in the beginning, she found it exciting to suddenly be on the other side of the world and to adjust to a completely new environment.

Within a few days, she already had to go to school and live with a host family with totally different rules than at home. ‘In the Netherlands I had a lot of freedom, but there I suddenly had a curfew, household chores and officially wasn’t allowed to go to parties.’ She especially found the hierarchy within the host family difficult. ‘My host parents decided everything. That definitely took some getting used to in the beginning, and because of that I felt quite homesick.’

At the same time, she loved many things about American life. Especially the typical school culture impressed her. Football games on Friday nights brought the whole community to the stadium, and as a cheerleader for the Wildcats, Féline was right in the middle of it. ‘You stood next to the field with full stands, loud music and everyone singing along.’

But no matter how fun American high school life sometimes was, according to Féline it also really felt like movies such as Mean Girls at times. ‘There are really cliques, popular groups and a lot of drama there.’ In the beginning, many people at school welcomed her enthusiastically as an exchange student, but later she noticed how quickly the atmosphere could change.

‘When some boys started hanging out with me, certain popular girls suddenly started gossiping and spreading mean things about me, which left me with almost no female friends. At that moment it really felt like I was in a Mean Girls movie.’

From exchange to TikTok

During her exchange, Féline started making YouTube videos to keep friends and family at home updated about her life in America. ‘I wanted to capture everything so people at home could see what I was experiencing,’ she says. ‘And looking back, I still really love watching those videos again.’

In her first year at Tilburg University, she also decided to make TikTok videos about her experiences in America. One of her first storytimes immediately went viral. ‘That video was about how I got grounded by my American host mother because I didn’t answer my phone at a party,’ Féline says. ‘Dutch viewers thought it was really bizarre how strict things could be there sometimes.’

After that video, she kept sharing more storytimes about her exchange, cheerleading and American school life. ‘That’s when I thought: maybe I should just keep doing this, because people apparently find it really interesting.’

She now has more than 60 thousand followers on TikTok. Besides her storytimes, she also makes many ‘Get Ready With Me’ videos, where she gets ready for classes, parties or other daily moments, and she shares vlogs about her student life and preparations for her new exchange to America.

Back to America

Next school year, Féline will return to the United States for her minor at San Diego State University in California. Still, she expects this experience to be very different from her first exchange in Indiana. ‘The first time, I really lived completely in an American host family and everything was about that high school experience,’ she says. ‘Now I’m going to live together with other international students and have a completely different kind of student life.’

While during her first exchange she was mostly busy trying to experience everything and not miss out on anything, this time she wants to take things more calmly. ‘Back then I constantly felt like I had to be everywhere. Now I really just want to enjoy things without putting so much pressure on myself.’

That is important to her, she says: ‘I basically want to show people: just do what you enjoy. If you really want something, whether that is social media or an exchange to America, you should just go for it and care less about what other people think.’

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