Deborah Ali-Williams / All Peoples' Funeral Home

Submission 17,092

Part of a series on FlopTok / Floptropica. [View Related Entries]

About

Deborah Ali-Williams is the President and Funeral Director of All Peoples' Funeral Home in Houston, Texas who became known online and in memes for her TikTok presence via the funeral home's TikTok page @allpeoplesfuneralhome. As she grew a large following on the platform, many TikTokers started stanning her and incorporating her into FlopTok memes, labeling her as the "President of Floptopica," namely Floptopica President Deborah Ali-Williams. She's also the star of a reality TV show called The Peoples' Place on The Wynn Network about her funeral home.

Background

Deborah Ali-Williams is the President and Funeral Director of All Peoples' Funeral Home in Houston, Texas.^[1] She enrolled in The Commonwealth Institute of funeral service in 1993 and graduated in 1995.^[1] She originally got a job at the J. Pruitt & Pruitt funeral home in Houston and later started the All Peoples' Funeral Home in 2000.^[2] According to an interview with Ali-Williams published by Houston Chronicle^[2] writer Monique Welch, Ali-Williams started posting to TikTok because it was her son's idea.

Online History

Deborah Ali-Williams posted her first TikTok^[3] to the account @allpeoplesfuneralhome on May 22nd, 2021, showing a simple advertisement for the funeral home. The TikTok received roughly 606,500 plays and 87,800 likes over the course of two years (shown below, left). Ali-Williams' first TikTok^[4] to receive over 1 million plays was uploaded on September 18th, 2021, earning roughly 1.1 million plays and 94,400 likes in two years (shown below, right).

The style of her aforementioned video became her predominant format going forward in which she was the center point of the video's focus. She went more viral going into 2022, like on July 20th, 2022, she posted a TikTok^[5] that received roughly 5.3 million plays and 78,400 likes in seven months, becoming her most viewed TikTok up until that point (shown below).

The Peoples' Place TV Show on The Wynn Network

In September 2022, Deborah Ali-Williams was signed by The Wynn Network to be the star of a reality TV show based on her funeral home business, titled, The Peoples' Place. A trailer for the show was released on YouTube^[6] on September 13th, 2022, gaining over 230 views in five months (shown below). The show filmed its first season and was greenlit for a second season around the same time.^[2]

Deborah Ali-Williams Memes / FlopTok

In September 2022, Deborah Ali-Williams' TikTok account @allpeoplesfuneralhome had roughly 59,400 followers, however, this number drastically increased over the course of seven months, whereby February 2023, @allpeoplesfuneralhome had amassed roughly 407,000 followers. The spike in Ali-Williams' following was inspired by various videos on TikTok that added captions to Ali-Williams' videos, making memes out of them.

The fan-made memes predominantly surfaced in late January 2023. For instance, an early example was uploaded by TikToker^[7] @deborahaliwilliams on January 27th, 2023, who captioned a video of Ali-Williams directing cars with, "Me directing people into my $trip club:" The video received roughly 59,600 plays and 7,000 likes in 17 days (shown below, left). On January 28th, 2023, TikToker^[8] @johnathan1_x posted a Deborah Ali-Williams meme with text reading, "Me trying to look busy when my boss sees me on my phone:" The TikTok received roughly 547,000 plays and 56,500 likes in 16 days (shown below, right).

Video memes on TikTok using Ali-Williams' videos became increasingly viral in February 2023, generally relating to FlopTok memes and lore.