TikTok's original mega-influencer Loren Gray: 'Anything is possible on social media'

With 54 million followers and counting, singer Loren Gray knows a thing or two about the power of influence

TikTok star Loren Gray was in Abu Dhabi this week to speak at the Forbes 30/50 Summit. Ruel Pableo for The National

At age 13, Loren Gray went three months without speaking.

“I would go to school, come home and go to sleep,” she says. “I just went through one of the hardest situations of my life. I felt so powerless. I felt like my voice had been taken away from me.”

During that dark period, Gray, who has since revealed she was the victim of abuse, turned to a new app, musical.ly — which would later be merged with TikTok — as a form of escape.

Fast-forward six years, and it’s amazing how far her voice has travelled. As one of the most-followed individuals on TikTok, she now has upwards of 54 million people hanging off her every word.

At first, her videos were just a form of expression, a way for her to mash clips together, add in some music and save them to her camera roll. But those videos would soon become the “happy accident” that would transform her life, racking up hundreds of thousands of views and gaining her a follower base of more than 30,000 before she’d hit her 14th birthday.

“The best way I could describe it is, it was like starting over,” she tells The National. “I had this whole new life, and it was exciting. People suddenly cared about me. It was like I had friends to talk to, because I didn’t have very many friends — any friends at all in fact — at the time. It was an outlet for me.”

As one of the original TikTok success stories, Gray has grown up on the platform. She left her home town in Pennsylvania and moved to Los Angeles at the age of 15, released her first single shortly afterwards, and has landed lucrative brand deals with the likes of Burger King and Revlon, to name but a few.

Now aged 19, Gray’s influence is being felt offline, too. In 2021, she was included in Forbes’s 30 Under 30 social media list, which brought her to the UAE this week to speak at the Forbes 30/50 Summit, held at Louvre Abu Dhabi.

She’s also forging a successful music career. With eight singles under her belt, Gray was initially signed with Virgin and Capitol Records, but recently became an independent artist.

“It’s really interesting because I didn’t have an overnight success, it was all really gradual, so I have sort of been figuring things out slowly,” she says. “Of course, signing my record deal was a big deal, and then going independent recently, I’ve realised I have the means to make music on my own and have creative control.”

While the impact TikTok has had on the music industry is undeniable, Gray says there is still a divide when it comes to bridging the gap between the two.

“I’ve built up my social media audience, but I don’t expect that to translate [to success],” she says. “I know that there will be some people that are interested in my music because they are super hardcore fans, but having a following doesn’t equal people listening to your music, so you sort of have to build that aspect from the ground up and you can’t just expect people [in the industry] to take you seriously, so it doesn’t offend me. You have to prove yourself in any space.”

But despite some of the barriers she has come up against, Gray has no doubt about where the future of the music industry is headed.

“Oh my gosh, I think TikTok is the music industry at this point,” she says. “But it’s so unpredictable. People ask me all the time ‘how can my artist use TikTok to blow up this song?’ But TikTok chooses for itself. You can’t really make something go viral.

“It’s really hard because people think ‘how do you have however many followers on TikTok and your song is not No 1 in the charts’, but TikTok is really driven by the people and what they want and I think that’s what’s really special about it, and also what’s really, really scary for record executives.”

With her 54-million-plus strong fan base on TikTok, and the additional 22 million followers she has on Instagram, Gray is naturally categorised as one of Gen-Z’s mega-influencers. But despite practically spearheading the movement, the concept of an influencer is still one that baffles her.

“Even six years ago when I started, I had never really heard anyone say they wanted to be an influencer, it’s such a recent thing,” she says. “It’s baffling to me because I never set out to be an internet personality.

“I was embarrassed to say that that’s what I do,” she says. “I would go to events and feel like I didn’t really belong. I was nominated for an award and still kicked off the carpet because no one understood what it was that I did or really cared, but now it’s an accomplishment, and I am really happy that people are finally getting the recognition they deserve for the hard work that they put in. It’s not easy, and I think some things happen by accident, but if you work at something and you really want something, especially on social media, then it’s possible.”

But despite the seemingly endless possibilities that social media has afforded Gray, she is not resting on her laurels.

“I am going to school for business and really just trying to expand my knowledge in that space,” she says. “My dad’s a scientist so I actually wanted to be a forensic anthropologist, and I wanted to go to the University of Pennsylvania. I had it all planned out. But then obviously this happened. It’s just learning little bits of information that I can apply to what I am already doing.”

Despite her star rising away from TikTok, Gray says she can’t see herself ever not sharing her life with her followers on the platform.

“I think I have learnt what can stay private and what can be public, and I am sure as I get older that will shift and I will pick and choose what I decide to share. [About] boyfriends, I’ve learned just keep it off social media until you are absolutely sure,” she laughs. “I used to publicise everything and it can get so messy and so dramatic super quickly, and that’s not good for anyone’s mental well-being, but I think I will always want to share what I am feeling because I have always done it and it’s all I really know. It’s second nature to me.

“I still wonder if my life is that interesting,” she says. “But I try to make sure that it is.”