Ohio University student Tony Piloseno says that he was fired from his job at a Sherwin-Williams store after his paint mixing videos went viral on TikTok.
BuzzFeed News reports that Piloseno, who uploads to TikTok through his page tonesterpaints, first revealed that he was fired from his part-time job earlier this month. Speaking with BuzzFeed, he said that he was fired in July after working at the store for three years.
"Last year, I started making paint videos at the store showing everyone how satisfying paint mixing could be," he said in the video in which he announced he was fired. "I noticed the videos were doing well and people seemed to be enjoying TikTok."
Prior to the firing, he said that he had been trying to show the company what it could do with a social media presence, marketing to a younger audience than usual. Despite this, corporate personnel at Sherwin-Williams launched an investigation into his TikTok account and determined that he was making "these videos during [his] working hours."
The official reason for his termination was "gross misconduct," with accusations that he had been "wasting properties [and] facilities," and "seriously embarrass[ing] the company or its products." The company said in a statement that his termination was over a "customer complaint" about his TikToks, however.
"They first accused me of stealing — I told them I purchased all my paint," he told BuzzFeed News. "They made me answer a bunch of questions like when I was doing this, where, if there was anyone in the store while I was doing [filming]. There was never anyone with me while I doing it. ... I'd just downloaded TikTok, and the videos took off almost immediately. It was just me doing a few customer orders here and there. When we were slow, I was making videos showing the process of it all."
Sherwin-Williams clearly weren't on board with utilizing TikTok, and has maintained that Piloseno used company property to create the videos during work hours. "I never even talked to my district manager," he added. "I was pretty pissed at first, but there was nothing I could really do." Even though he lost his job, he has continued to shared videos on TikTok, using a friend's basement to make more paint-mixing posts.
