Charli D'Amelio/TikTok
- Charli D'Amelio is now the most popular creator on TikTok, the viral video-sharing app where she has more than 40 million followers.
- D'Amelio, 15, is the definition of an overnight star: Since her first video went viral on the platform in July 2019, she's appeared in a Super Bowl commercial, signed with a talent agency, and has become the face of the collab group Hype House.
- D'Amelio gained the No. 1 spot by surpassing Loren Gray, a 17-year-old creator who has branched into singing and acting since gaining fame.
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Charli D'Amelio has been the bonafide queen of TikTok for months, but now she's officially the platform's most popular creator.
D'Amelio, 15, became the most followed TikTok account Wednesday, with more than 41 million followers, surpassing Loren Gray to secure the top spot on the video-sharing platform.
D'Amelio went to No. 1 in only a matter of 9 months. She first launched her TikTok account in June 2019, and her first viral video - a simple dance tutorial - came just a month later.
Since its launch 2 years ago, TikTok has become an integral part of Gen Z culture. With nearly 2 billion times, the app has also become a launchpad for many of the memes and songs dominating the internet. Teens like D'Amelio, who grew up a competitive dancer, have found fame on TikTok by creating short videos lip-syncing to soundbites, showing off choreographed dances, and performing comedy skits that can go viral.
"I wish I could give everyone an explanation as to what happened, but I have no idea," D'Amelio said in a recent interview with MEL. "So many people do this. Just not everyone posts it. And whatever I did, I guess, worked."
She's since become an established presence on the platform, largely thanks to her choreography and dancing, often replicated by other users across the app. D'Amelio is perhaps most well known for "The Renegade": a dance to the song, "Lottery," by rapper K-Camp. The dance became a popular meme across TikTok in October 2019 and propelled D'Amelio into the TikTok elite. It was later reported - first by Vox, then the New York Times - that D'Amelio had borrowed the choreography from a Georgia teen named Jalaiah Harmon, who didn't gain that same level of viral fame when she posted a video of the dance on Instagram a month earlier.
D'Amelio had passed 5 million followers by November 2019. The following month, she joined up with other young, rising TikTok creators to form the collective known as Hype House. D'Amelio reached 20 million followers in February, transitioning from internet sensation to a fully-fledged star: She made a cameo appearance in a Super Bowl commercial for Sabra hummus, and signed a contract - alongside her sister, Dixie, and their parents - with talent agency UTA.
D'Amelio now splits her time between her parents' home in Connecticut, and Hype House, based in Los Angeles.
