Alex Hogg has worked as a costume character, tugboat deckhand, bodyguard and bartender. Later, after watching his friends return from serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, he became a certified trauma therapist.
Most recently, he became a TikTok creator, spreading his clinical expertise on ADHD, autism and other mental health subjects to an audience of more than 327,000.
This year, Hogg, 50, is achieving a different goal: renovating a church into his forever home.
In February, Hogg and his wife bought a 3,700 square-foot building which decades ago served as a Baptist church in Silvis. The building includes ornate stained glass windows, a church bell, a 15,000 gallon cistern and a vast main hall that Hogg calls “the great room.”
“I’ve never liked conventional housing,” Hogg said. “I’ve always liked big open floor plans. My ideal house would be one part workshop, one part kitchen, one part greenhouse, and then maybe if there’s enough space, a place for me to sleep and take a shower.”
When Hogg was younger, he had a goal to build or renovate a barn and turn the space into a large, comfortable home. That later expanded to include all types of unorthodox buildings, like churches. He found the old church one day advertised on a national Facebook group, and soon realized the building was in the Quad-Cities.
Hogg is considering using the vast space of the church to host support events, like community support groups for those with ADHD or partners of those with ADHD. Hogg’s wife hosts Reiki classes and tai chi, and Hogg said his wife may teach classes in the great room as well.
Hogg first planned to complete initial upgrades and move into the church by the end of July. But tariffs on lumber doubled the prices of some materials and caused some construction delays, Hogg said.
Much of the wiring and other woodworking Hogg has completed himself, and he has only been able to work on the weekends. Hogg said he has spent every weekend, except one, since February renovating the church. Hogg has spent around $40,000 on materials for the upgrades, he said.
“It’s been a really fun adventure, and an expensive adventure, but holy cow, you can’t not walk into that room and just feel something,” he said about the great room.
Mental health advocacy
Hogg runs the TikTok account @alosaurolophus, as well as the corresponding YouTube, Instagram, Facebook accounts @ThatAlexHogg. His TikTok account has more than 327,000 followers and six million views. Most of his content focuses on symptoms, experiences and challenges of those with ADHD, autism and other conditions.
Seeing his content become popular has been “weird,” Hogg said.
“I don’t think what I do should be anything special,” Hogg said. “Any clinician that claims to work with ADHD and claims to work with autism should know all the same things I do.”
Hogg began filming videos mid-2020. Hogg’s clients were trying to explain mental health concepts to their friends and family, but struggled to capture the exact language Hogg was using during sessions. Hogg began filming videos describing symptoms or concepts, so clients could show these videos to their friends and family.
“They can take my professional words and make it easier for them to be able to communicate their needs, and get their needs met, and advocate for themselves and seek their own accommodations,” Hogg said.
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In addition to working with patients with ADHD and autism, Hogg works with a wide variety of patients including patients with PTSD, somatoform disorders, anxiety and trauma backgrounds.
Hogg listens and learns from clients’ experiences and struggles, he said.
“Learning through your clients is probably one of the best ways to become an excellent clinician. I think any clinician that walks into a room and believes they are the expert in that person’s life is already doing their client a disservice,” he said.
Hogg films a video every morning before work. He aims to create four psychoeducational videos a week, and sometimes films another video on the weekends if he’s inspired, or if he wants to give his audience renovation updates.
In January, Hogg hired a manager in Sweden who helps post videos and manage his accounts. He hired her at the time when TikTok voluntarily suspended its services in the United States to comply with the federal ban, though the ban has since been extended.
Everything Hogg films is off-the-cuff. He sometimes records a video a few times, or has bullet points on his computer, but he does not script his content, he said.
“In general, it’s just me talking about stuff the same way I would if you were sitting in my office as a clinic,” he said.
Though his manager has encouraged him to use scripts, Hogg prefers his unscripted, organic approach. It’s honest, he said.
Hogg himself was diagnosed with ADHD at 38, and he said it’s helpful for others with ADHD to see someone who has ADHD talking about the condition in a knowledgeable, clinical way.
Often, he does not edit out the parts where he loses his train of thought. Hogg said this makes him more human, especially to viewers with ADHD.
“If we can learn how to be the most genuine form of ourselves and really give ourselves all the necessary accommodations that we need, any single one of us can succeed,” Hogg said.
While Hogg’s content is monetized, he does not receive much money from them, he said. At the high end, he might make $400 this year, he said.
Most people have responded to his content positively, thanking him for distilling complex research into understandable content, he said. Because of him, some viewers have sought testing or diagnoses, he said.
Outside of TikTok, Hogg said he finds fulfillment as a therapist seeing others become healthy. Hogg said his metric of success is different from a lot of other careers. Watching a client maintain a full-time job, or go to the grocery store by themselves can be a significant mark of success, he said.
“It’s the coolest job in the world for me,” he said.
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