Charli Brain behind Tik Tok is A year older
Charli D’Amelio born May 1, 2004, is an American social media personality and dancer.
As of April 21, 2020, she has accumulated over 50.1 million followers on the social video sharing app TikTok, and has been called the “reigning queen of TikTok” by the New York Times.
She is the most-followed individual on the platform.
As the first creator to reach 50m followers on TikTok, the now 16-year-old is laying down the blueprint for self-made success in the age of Generation Z.
From joining the platform in June 2019 to collaborating with Chase Hudson and the other stars from the Hype House group, Charli D’Amelio is now doing things her own way and it’s all rooted in relatability and authenticity.
When she answers the call from her home in Connecticut, US, 16-year-old Charli D’Amelio is wearing a heather-grey T-shirt and a necklace with a crescent moon on it.
Her dark hair is tied back, save the two loose strands that frame her face. She’s in good spirits, despite being stuck inside on lockdown, away from her friends.
“I woke up at a decent time and I have [online] school later,” she says, “so that should be fun.” By the end of the day, tens of millions of people will have seen Charli’s face on their phones.
This is her life, mundanity juxtaposed with celebrity, and it has been for the past 10 months. In June 2019, Charli joined the video-sharing social network site, TikTok.
Now, she’s the platform’s most-followed user, with more than 51 million people subscribed to her account.
The New York Times has called her “the reigning queen of TikTok”. Quite how she built such a huge audience, Charli isn’t so sure.
“It was all happening really quickly,” she says, acknowledging her place at the top could be temporary. “TikTok changes every day, so there could be someone else that passes me tomorrow, who knows?” In short, her account consists of quick, usually under-15 second videos of dance routines that have (or will, with her blessing) go viral on the platform.
https://t.co/duMM3PXCxL pic.twitter.com/UJJLcDXhCh
— charli d’amelio (@charlidamelio) May 1, 2020
Her videos feel natural; her dancing style feasible yet fluid, making her the perfect guide for fans to follow in her footsteps.
It’s since led to her sitting front-row at Prada autumn/winter 2020 in Milan, guest spots on late-night American talk shows, and a planned reality TV series following the entire D’Amelio family — both her parents and her sister Dixie, 18, use TikTok too.
“Before TikTok, I was doing pretty much the exact same thing that I’m doing right now,” Charli insists. “I was always making dance videos because it’s been a big passion of mine. I’ve been dancing in front of a camera since I was really little.”
This is true, she says, because you can find them online with a swift Google search.
“Whatever I feel like making, that’s what I’ll make at the time,” Charli says of her creative process on the app. “There’s nothing I use that’s, like, a strategy.”
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Being genuine, TikTok’s elite will tell you, is the key to success on the app, and if you flick through Charli’s videos, of which there are many, you will see a consistent stream of videos that bear a close resemblance to what other young creators are putting out there.
How Charli cracked that formula and became its biggest talent is even beyond her own comprehension: “I don’t think it’s really set in yet, to where I fully understand it, but thinking about it now, [50 million] is a lot of people,” she says, drawing out her vowels just a little.
Happy Birthday Charli D’Amelio.
