by Influencer pop stars are bred and catapulted to fame by TikTok, but can they keep their spot in a business of short attention spans?
From Doja Cat’s ‘Say So’ to Lil Nas X’s ‘Old Town Road’, the internet has seen repeated proof of artists skyrocketing to fame from a few seconds of their song going viral on TikTok. A study released by the platform in collaboration with Luminate analytics earlier this year revealed that 84% of songs that entered the Billboard Global 200 in 2024 were first viral on TikTok. The study also found that users are twice as likely to discover music on TikTok than on any other social media platform. But unlike the fleeting tracks falling out of flavour when the algorithm moves on, the trend of TikTok artists has done a rigorous job of holding on.
The song of summer 2025 is largely held to have been ‘Ordinary’ by Alex Warren, the longest-running number one hit of the year. Like many other artists of his generation, Warren started his personal branding on TikTok as a content creator before entering the world of music. Similarly to what Disney Channel once was, TikTok breeds young stars with an image that is ready to be put on a pop record. Manufacturing a musical comet from a cultural phenomenon is nothing new, but will they hang on to the spotlight?
Although Warren got his breakout hit this year, he had been famous for a while, thanks to co-founding the ‘Hype House’, a shared living space for TikTok content creators. Surrounded by influencers, one being his wife, his videos were mostly pranks and skating stunts. He signed a record deal with Atlantic Records in 2022 and released his debut studio album, You’ll Be Alright, Kid, this summer.
A fellow roommate in the Hype House was Addison Rae, now the fifth most followed person on TikTok, who also released an EP this summer, Addison. She had been making a shit ton of money on the platform since record labels started compensating her to use their songs in her lip-syncing videos. Soon, record labels started to catch on that it may be faster to cut out the middleman and make the influencer the pop star. And with the right investment, the TikTok star’s music might not be half bad, as Addison proved, receiving a warm reception from audiences and artists alike.
The other side of the coin is that artists have to depend on social media’s unforgiving algorithm if they got their start with it. Longevity isn’t guaranteed in music made for platforms with short attention spans, and German singer-songwriter Kim Petras found out first-hand. Despite having reached a certain recognition through collaborations with Sam Smith and Nicki Minaj, the pop artist became famous on TikTok and has had a hard time filling venues during her Feed the Beast tour. The singer had to eventually partner with Groupon to discount her tickets.
Californian singer-songwriter Joshua Bassett has over 3million TikTok followers, and has been unable to sell most of his The Golden Years tour entries – resorting to giving tickets away for free instead. Conversely, Olivia Rodrigo’s team severely underestimated the venue sizes chosen for her Sour Tour in 2022 following the star’s ‘Driver’s License’ TikTok explosion. Capital FM reported that a venue with a 3500-seat capacity had over 40,000 of Rodrigo’s fans queuing for tickets.
Rodrigo’s conservative estimates were followed for the artist to not “skip any steps,” which was an apt move in an age when stardom brings artists to explode too soon and burn out too fast. The challenge that caught many TikTok pop stars unprepared was forecasting demand in line with an unpredictable trend cycle. Therefore, the question remains – did video kill or build the radio star?
