Eddie Swartzentruber was just 17 years old when he abandoned the only way of life he had ever known. Now, at 25, Swartzentruber is a business owner who has started to blow up on TikTok after sharing why he left the Amish community.
Swartzentruber, of Rochester, joined News Talk 830 WCCO's Vineeta Sawkar to discuss the life-altering decision he made in the dead of night over seven years ago.
When it comes to why Swartzentruber decided to leave his friends and family, he said that he had found himself confused about the strictness of the community and the freedoms he could see in the outside world.
"We did get a glimpse of outside people, you know they drive on down the gravel road with the cars, it was super cool," Swartzentruber said, adding that he often found himself wondering why he couldn't do things like drive a car or buy his clothes instead of making them.
He shared that from a young age, he started thinking about how he wanted to leave the Amish community, but the one thing he struggled with was finding out how to get away.
Now that he's left the community, he has started his own life, which even includes using a smartphone, something that never would have happened before.
Swartzentruber said that he received a recommendation in the app store for the fast-growing social media platform TikTok and thought it might be fun to try it out, not knowing what it was or that he would soon gain a following from it.
"I didn't even know about it or anything," Swartzentruber said.
While at first, he was posting fun videos of him goofing off, he started to share his experiences with the Amish community last spring.
"I guess people like it, and people connect with it. Partially because I think… there is really only kind of one [perception] of the Amish, and that's that they're a super conservative, very peaceful, and laid back group of people," Swartzentruber said.
But Swartzentruber started giving a more in-depth look into what it is like to be a part of the Amish community, and people began resonating with what he was sharing, something he said he never expected.
"I was absolutely blown away. I didn't think people had an interest in watching it," Swartzentruber said. "I was surprised. I thought only a couple hundred people would watch."
While Amish communities aren't the same across the board, Swartzentruber shared that people want to see what goes on inside the communities.
"I just go over basic rules," Swartzentruber said. "They were basic rules for me, but to people, it's like mind-blowing what you can have and can't have."
Rules included restrictions on the clothes Swartzentruber could wear, how he could cut his hair, and items he could or could not use.
However, the most popular video that he has made centered around shunning.
"People are super fascinated about 'how does shunning work? Why do people get shunned?'" Swartzentruber said.
He said that "people get shunned over just any little rules that they have," including having a "stove that's too worldly" or even putting triangles on the back of their buggies.
Swartzentruber has built a life for himself in the English world, but he still communicates with his family that remained in the Amish community, though he says it's not as much as he would like.
"They would get in trouble. Once you leave, you are now excommunicated," Swartzentruber said. "So if family that's still Amish communicates with me too much and I'm not Amish, then they're going to get in trouble with the church and get shunned and thrown out."
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