LIVIGNO, Italy (NEXSTAR) - American snowboard racer Nick Baumgartner has become a social media standout during the Milan-Cortina Games in Livigno, Italy, as he competes in his fifth Olympics. His Instagram following increased from 30,000 to more than 100,000 during the games as fans followed his behind-the-scenes content and interactions with celebrities. While Baumgartner is known for a "big personality" and comedic posts with teammates in the athletes' village, he maintains that the social media presence serves as an outlet for the constant pressure of Olympic performance. Landon Baumgartner has been monitoring his father's rapid rise in popularity on digital platforms. "Over the last few days he's gone from 30,000 followers to more than 100,000," Baumgartner said. He described the sudden surge in followers as "insane." One of the athlete's most popular posts occurred on Feb. 14, when he documented a search for a valentine while in Italy. His teammate, Faye Thelen, asked about that search during our recent interveiw. Baumgartner said the search was "ongoing."Other content has featured Baumgartner "clowning" with teammates in the athletes village, where he even filmed them trying to sleep. Despite the viral nature of his videos, Baumgartner brought his son to the games to provide support during the snowboard cross events. "I got my good luck charm here. Look at this, my son made it, so we're going to go out there and give it everything we've got," Baumgartner said. Baumgartner addressed the balance between his online presence and his athletic responsibilities, noting that his priority remained on his performance for his family and community. "We put the social media out there, but it was all about focus," Baumgartner said. "I needed to focus on the task at hand and that wasn't getting a date. It was about coming here and performing and representing our families and our communities and I wish we could have done that better, but we're having fun man." All facts in this report were gathered by journalists employed by Nexstar. Artificial intelligence tools were used to reformat from a broadcast script into a news article for our website. This report was edited and fact-checked by Nexstar staff before being published