How 15-year-old Charli D’Amelio became TikTok’s biggest star just by being herself

When she answers the call from her home in Connecticut, US, 15-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”.

Discovering the TikTok formula

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. 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 AW20 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 always been a big passion of mine. I’ve been dancing in front of a “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.” 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.

Charli was born in the town of Norwalk, Connecticut, in May 2004 to Marc and Heidi D’Amelio. “My parents raised us to always give back, no matter what we were doing,” she says. They keep her humble (“You still have to empty the dishwasher and feed the dogs,” they tell her) and they’re there to monitor her output, such as advising her against doing the recent ‘mugshot challenge’, which many found to be tone deaf.

“My parents have always been careful about making sure I don’t post anything I wouldn’t want on the internet, because you never know what’s going to happen. [The] mugshot challenge got bad feedback from a lot of people. That whole situation made me realise that my parents have my best interests at heart and want nothing but the best for me. They were right.”

Using the platform for good

Marc and Heidi were the first people she turned to when she decided to use her quickly growing following to help other people. Now, Charli’s videos of dance routines are paired with hashtags designed to spread awareness and raise money for charities. Charli’s #DistanceDance is the latest, encouraging people to stay inside during the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s an intuitive collaboration with Procter & Gamble that saw the consumer goods conglomerate agree to donate money to charities Feeding America and Matthew 25 for the first 3m videos that were uploaded to the platform.

The campaign has been live for just over a month, and the hashtag has amassed over 14.2bn—yes, billion—views since. “I like most of the campaigns I do to have a message of positivity or anti-bullying [behind them],” Charli says. “It’s important, since I’ve been given this platform, that I use it to spread good, important messages that teenagers need to hear. I just think: ‘Who would I be listening to if I didn’t have this platform? What would I want them to say to me?’”

It’s an impact that’s hard to process, even for Charli. Her old life, before TikTok, is rarely a subject of discussion anymore. Everybody wants to know about what’s happening next. She misses school a little, though she sees her friends in her own time when she isn’t in lockdown. It’s strange to see how old friends have come out of the woodwork, too: “It’s weird to see how [they] have changed, which kind of hurts,” she says, “but I have the people I have around me for a certain reason, so it doesn’t bother me that much.”

She’s also had the chance to meet more ‘traditionally’ famous people. “J.Lo has been amazing,” she says. “She was so sweet to me and I'm just so happy that I met her.” Where did they get talking? “At the Super Bowl,” Charli nods. Naturally.

Later today, Charli D’Amelio will log on to that online class and learn about trigonometry and algebra, just like a regular 15-year-old. Then she’ll dive deep into a study about pandemics throughout history. But before all of that, she’ll jump onto TikTok and record a quick video of her doing the #DistanceDance with her dog, tagging Jimmy Fallon. (Charli currently has 20 times more followers than the American television host.) Within 48 hours, it’ll rack up more than 15m views and over 3.7m likes.

For every ounce of normality Charli D’Amelio is tied to, there’s something astral attached to her name now. She’s a teenage girl today and she’ll be a teenage girl tomorrow, sure, but she’s also created a longstanding blueprint for self-made success for a generation, rooted in relatability and altruism. “I know, no matter what, with or without the followers I'd still be making the same videos,” she insists. “Just as long as I’m having fun.”

Follow Charli D’Amelio on TikTok

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