Wait, what made the biggest TikTokers famous in the first place?

Charli is the CEO of the Renegade 😩😩😩

4 years ago

TikTokers are the latest in the trend of teenage idiots doing idiotic teenage shit on the internet, and the worst part is that the biggest creators have been around for no longer than a year. Whether it’s continually flouting COVID rules to go to huge house parties and shamelessly publicising their actions while doing it, or getting into petty beef with each other over NOTHING, these kids continually prove that they are the absolute worst. And the biggest question of all – how did they even get to this position?

Seriously, lots of them are making millions from TikTok, but was there one particular video that made them famous or were they destined for greatness before the app even became mainstream? Let’s take a look into what exactly made these reprobates well known and rich in the first place.

Addison Rae

Addison Rae is the current best mate of Kourtney Kardashian which, if that’s emblematic of anything in the modern world, means that she’s asserted herself as one of the fastest rising social media stars of all time.

There isn’t much information about which single video made Addison famous or gave her the breakthrough that she needed per se, but we know a little about her gradual rise to fame. Going to college to study journalism, she started making videos drawing from her experience as a professional dancer.

The above makes her latest TikToks look like choreographed masterpieces right? Addison supposedly downloaded TikTok as a joke while babysitting a group of middle schoolers and made that very video, which lamented the start of a career that would see her make five million dollars in 2019 alone.

And it’s been pretty much upwards from there. You’re welcome – no cramped thumbs for you scrolling down to the bottom of her feed to find out.

Charli D’Amelio

Charli has two people to thank for her rise to the most-followed creator on the app since she started posting on 30th March 2019. First is her duet with user @move_with_joy, which gave her the first taste of making a totally viral video. She later thanked Move With Joy by saying: “Without her, I would not be where I am today”. Check out the July 2019 duet here:

Secondly, and more obviously, is the Renegade dance. Charli did a number of separate dances and videos to this song, but the most iconic is likely to be the following for how just viral it went, transforming her career once again to something far bigger. This was posted in October of 2019:

Dixie D’Amelio

Considering how hard it must be to follow in the footsteps of your much more famous younger sister, Dixie has not done badly at all and has properly paved the way for a successful career in her own right that mostly consists of various dances and skits.

Although she doesn’t really have a specific video or trend to attribute her fame towards, in most part due to already being relatively known as the older sister of Charli and her astronomic rise to fame, what we can do it take a look at the first video she ever uploaded.

The whole slide-your-phone-under-the-door thing was a huge trend back in the day and was sure to bang likes as it featured her superstar sister Charli at the end. Due to the fame that can be brought on by one member of the family being famous, now both of their parents are also signed to creative agencies as creators which is… mental.

Sebastian Bails

Sebastian is a complete TikTok OG, long eclipsing Charli or Addison but, unlike them, he’s since gone on to find controversy as every budget creator does by constructing and falsifying huge portions of his content for child audiences. Whether it was pretending to be sent off to the military or pretending to have a long term girlfriend in the first place (we speculate), his whole career has been a bit of a lie and he’s infinitely hateable because of it. Cheers!

Okay, so maybe this isn’t exactly the video that MADE him famous, but this is certainly one of, if not THE, most memorable TikTok of Sebastian’s just for how feet clenchingly cringeworthy it is. What on earth was he thinking by doing this?! It’s so obviously an intended thirst trap but it just didn’t work out. Like at all.

This is ALL Sebastian Bails should ever be known for, and ever will be known for.

Bella Poarch

Bella Poarch sits comfortably in that “cutesy blushed girl miming stupid shit in a childish way” category of TikTok. Like really, is there any audio that this group of girls wouldn’t mime to? Next it will be the audio from boring court proceedings or incoherent death metal songs. Probably.

@bellapoarchTo the 🐝 🐝 🐝 ##fyp ♬ M to the B – Millie B

How could it be anything else? Nobody had heard of her before she slapped the blusher on and took Millie B’s biggest hit to the Tok, but now she’s a full-on household name on the app. The most 2020 thing to ever happen is for a TikToker to attribute their career to Millie B from BG Media, but we move.

Zach King

For those that don’t have a mental image spring to mind as soon as they hear the name Zach King, let’s get his most famous TikTok out of the way straight off the bat:

@zachkingThey rejected my application to Hogwarts but I still found a way to be a wizard. 🧹##illusion ##magic ##harrypotter ♬ Zach Kings Magic Broomstick – Zach King

What many people may or may not know is that Zach made his career through YouTube and then Vine before eventually landing on TikTok. His first leap to fame came in the form his 2011 YouTube hit Jedi Kittens, which has over 20 million views to this day. It’s very 2011 with the cats and lightsabers and all, but you can’t deny it’s pretty great:

Two sequels followed which both went mad viral in their own respects, and Zach was thus known as that internet video guy who made quirky cool-edited videos. A career on Vine followed from 2013, and he created many of his iconic optical illusion based Vines.

THEN an appearance on The Ellen Degeneres Show followed that, and he’s practically been paid for making video content on a full-time basis ever since.

Loren Gray

Loren Gray is the creator that everyone seems to know a little about, but I can guarantee that you’ve never met a fan of hers or actually anyone that follows her work closely. Essentially, she is famous for making some pretty thirst-trappy videos as below:

@lorengrayshēė♬ šhęæ – abeera <3

Loren is one of the few people on this list that started TikTok back when it was called musical.ly, and since then has become one of the biggest creators on the app, making over two million dollars in 2019. Her first video SCREAMS old school musical.ly with the weird sped up hand movements and weird phone shaking, take a look:

From humble beginnings such as her initial videos being posted in 2015 whilst she was in sixth grade, she has worked her way up to fourth most-followed creator on the app.

Jayden Croes

Gilmher and his brother Jayden are two of the most annoying and long-lasting creators on the app, so it’s no surprise that their first real breakthrough into fame saw them receiving a barrage of abuse and consequently deleting the video within 24 hours. Yup, we’re talking about the “Hi Hungry, I’m dad!” song.

In November 2018, Jayden uploaded the above video which saw them miming with stupid faces to The Muffin Song from asdfmovie. It’s just their thing. After 16 hours of abuse, they deleted the video, but that wasn’t the last we were going to see of it. Oh no, for they acknowledged how notorious it was by recreating it in 2020. The audacity.