When TikTok first gained popularity in 2019, its Gen-Z users shared videos of themselves lip syncing to popular songs, acting out dance trends, and starring in viral challenges.
Since then, TikTok has become one of the hottest social-media platforms, and the app has become a place for creators of all ages and content categories to grow an audience.
TikTok has changed — and so have its stars.
TikTok's first homegrown influencers, like Charli D'Amelio and Addison Rae Easterling, grew in popularity with dancing and lip syncing videos filmed from their childhood bedrooms. Now, they are signed with Hollywood talent agencies and making waves in more traditional entertainment roles.
In 2020, fueled by stay-at-home orders, TikTok continued to surge and so did the number of communities on the app. Influencer Hyram Yarbro shared skincare tips, Devon Rodriguez was drawing portraits on the subway, and Chriselle Lim was showing off her life as a "rich mom" in fashion.
As the app matured, new content trends took over, from comedy and cooking to book reviews. Gone are the days when the platform's most recognizable creators break out into dance.
Take Khaby Lame, for instance, who silently reacts to videos. He has amassed 155 million followers on the app, surpassing D'Amelio as the most followed creator on TikTok.
To show how the platform has evolved, and which creators rose to fame each year, we used data from the creator information site Famous Birthdays, which acts as an IMDB for creators, influencers, and other notables. The platform is visited by up to 25 million monthly unique users, and the search engine on Famous Birthdays is searched up to 20 million times per month, according to the site's founder Evan Britton.
From analyzing searches on its platform, Famous Birthdays is able to identify which creators are rising in real time. It identified Addison Rae Easterling, who now has 88 million TikTok followers, as a breakout creator when she first gained momentum on TikTok, contacting her when she had just 300,000 followers, she told the LA Times.
While the data shows that creators in many categories can now break out on TikTok, the classic lip syncing and dancing that the app was first known for can still propel new TikTokers to stardom.
Here were the rising stars on TikTok each year since 2019, according to data from Famous Birthdays: