Charli D’Amelio isn’t worth the ‘hype’
TikToker Charli D’Amelio, who has gained worldwide renown after posting videos of her dancing, doesn’t deserve all the acclaim she’s been given
By Steven Curto
Popular TikToker Charli D’Amelio has amassed a huge following although she is unoriginal and underserving of the worldwide renowned she’s been given.
February 28, 2020
I’m sure that from the headline you think this opinion piece is going to be a negative op-ed about popular TikToker Chari D’amelio, but as you read the entirety of the opinion I’m sure you’ll find yourself reevaluating your current stance on Charli.
To understand this opinion you must understand what the “hype” is and what the social media platform TikTok is all about.
To the common adult, TikTok may seem like a lip-syncing platform where teenagers mouth along with the tunes to their favorite songs, but you would be gravely mistaken. TikTok replaced the former application Musical.ly, which was a platform primarily used by pre-teens and teenagers to lip-sync, but TikTok is so much more. The rebranding of the application caused a flood of teenagers to redownload the app and start creating content that was unlikely to be seen on Musically.ly such as dance videos, comedic skits, conversations, aesthetically pleasing videos and so much more.
Now with this wave of teenagers downloading the app, a flood of new “popular” TikTokers or content creators was born. Such as popular TikToker Chase Hudson who goes by the name “Lilhuddy” on TikTok. These new creators rose to fame through dance-style videos which were in step to the beat and lyrics of popular songs. That’s where 15-year-old Charli D’amelio comes into the picture. D’amelio took the world by storm when her six to 15-second dance videos blew up on TikTok through the applications ‘For You’ page. The ‘For You’ page uses an algorithm to recommend videos to users that it thinks they would be interested in, much like Youtube’s “recommended page.” As D’amelio’s TikToks blew up, many users on the app started labeling her newfound fame the “hype.” Teenagers all across the country and the world began flooding D’amelio’s comment sections criticizing her rise to fame and her “hype,” questioning how she became so popular on TikTok in such a short period as she rose to fame on the app by recreating popular dances created by other users.
As time went on, the term “hype” stuck with D’amelio and she began to play along with it, stating in her TikTok bio “don’t worry I don’t get the hype either.” Her newfound fame brought her an incredible opportunity to work with other popular content creators such as Chase Hudson, Avani Gregg, Ondreaz Lopez, Tony Lopez and popular dancer Addison Rae. All these creators decided to work together making videos on TikTok with one another to help gain one another more followers. These creators formed the Hype House under the direction of Chase Hudson and member Thomas Petrou. Charli D’amelio and her sister Dixie D’amelio joined the Hype House which has been compared to popular YouTube content house Team 10, created by YouTuber Jake Paul. The members combined have well over one hundred million followers on TikTok alone and are among some of the most recognized figures on the platform. Charli has amassed the most individual followers and likes, which currently sit at 31.0 million followers and 1.7 billion likes. With this kind of following, she has become one of the most recognized and influential dancers and teenagers in the world.
Through the Hype House and people talking about and sharing Charli’s content with their friends, she has easily become our generation’s poster child. She has become recognized by adults and companies alike who see her large following as an opportunity to grow their business’s popularity among teenagers. One such company is Sabra, who featured her in a SuperBowl advertisement.
With Charli’s enormous following, which she amassed in the span of four months, the question of her “hype” comes into question. Is a teenager who recreates popular dances circulating around TikTok and who resembles the normal teenage girl really worth all the publicity she’s been receiving?
While there is no doubt that Charli is incredibly good at what she does – making short dance videos – I don’t think that someone who just makes videos to already-popular dances on TikTok and who doesn’t break the mold of a normal all American teenage girl is worth the amount of publicity and following that she has received. This is nothing new, though, as popular Muser Loren Gray had amassed over 30 million followers on Muscially.ly through lip-syncing videos when this platform was still popular.
It’s a predictable cycle on popular social media apps for teenagers to flock to a popular creator’s account in the millions when they see that influencer being incredibly talented at what they do. Teenagers see what a popular 15-year-old girl is doing and want to replicate that because they see that she is getting attention which they also want, so they follow her and mimic what lead her to success. This culture around giving these normal teenagers enormous influence is extremely pointless and unnecessary as they just make short dance videos or, in Loren Gray’s case, lip-sync videos which do not amount to the kind of following and attention they have received. People who deserve the hype are public figures such as Ellen Degeneres who use their voice and their platform to make people happy and to spread awareness about things that matter and pertain to the world at large. One could argue that these short dance videos and lip sync videos make teenagers happy and get their minds off of trivial matters such as stress from school, but unlike Ellen who has put in years of her life to get where she is and who raises awareness on important matters, these teenagers do nothing to raise awareness or warrant the amount of influence for which they behold.
This begs the question of, in a society where we pride ourselves on individual expression, creativity and pride, our societal role model of integrity and activism is Charli D’amelio, a typical run-of-the-mill teenage girl who recreates popular dance trends on TikTok and doesn’t use her platform to raise awareness about important matters is really worth the hype.
maddie • May 28, 2021 at 9:38 am
yes i understand she just dances in front of a camera but she deals with paparazzi and so much more that we could not imagen in her life no matter how much hate she gets she always has a smile and tries her hardest to always be happy,
AUTUMN V KARAS • Mar 10, 2021 at 7:59 am
I agree ?. She is nothing special and soon she’ll be forgotten. I wish she would do something important with all that influence like raise awareness for starving children and or trafficking, women’s health, etc.
Kyra Muiruri • Jan 28, 2021 at 4:08 pm
She does as she does raise awareness of things such as BLM.I am black personally and look up to her as I love dancing and she just doesn’t do dancing tiktoks. She is also a competitive dancer and some of the only creators with a BLM profile pic on tiktok and a BLM background on Twitter.She also gives lots of money to charity.Yes she has her flaws but she is as well deserving of the hype as she has had her ups and downs. Besides,fame isn’t all glitz and glamour.Also,if you don’t like her having the hype why give it to her.You know she has trouble with disorders and other things and has a caring heart so why do this?Can you keep this to yourself?This is extremely unnesasary?I agree she has done many bad things but we are all human.Aren’t we?
Imran • Nov 24, 2020 at 10:15 pm
This entire article and this entire website are disgusting, men talking about girls and criticizing their worth, fame, and personality in general. Charli got fame at an extremely young age, she gets enough hate and i’m tired of grown men using the same nonsense to try to degrade a successful woman. whether you like it or not, she got famous and surprisingly you helped her get there. It’s so crazy how she has 100 million followers and everyone still wants to question her worth and if she deserves what she worked for when they helped her get there. I don’t even like her or follow her, but does that mean I spend excessive amounts of time and energy writing hate articles about her? absolutely not. She deserves her fame, why? cause she worked for it. Cry about it.
CharminXtra • Sep 16, 2020 at 3:00 am
Yea, all she really does is just repeat the same 20 or so dance moves to different songs, sometimes with the only difference between multiple videos being her outfit and/or where she is in her house. And as far as I can tell, most of her dance moves aren’t even original and apparently the dance that really made her famous was invented by a younger black and Charli just copied it without giving the girl any credit until she was called out on it. But the worst part is that so many people see her as this great role model, including parents, and a ton of younger girls and boys basically obsess over her posts. This would be fine if the vast majority of her dances weren’t suggestive with a lot of them including belly dancing and turning away from the camera and bending over to shake her a** while ensuring it’s put front and center, all while wearing revealing outfits that often consist of low riding sweatpants and sports bras as well as thong bikinis. On top of that, almost all of the songs she dances to are extremely explicit, talking almost exclusively about sex, drugs, violence and money with lyrics that degrade women regularly. Even Charli herself is too young to be allowed to buy the music she posts at a lot of places that have policies not to sell parental advisory albums to persons under 18, yet young children watch her postings religiously and parents seem to think she’s a great role model just because she has a “positive attitude” or something. I’m always seeing people confused on how Charli became famous, but I think it’s pretty obvious that she’s famous because she’s good looking for her age and puts out a ton of content that consists mostly of her doing provocative dances in skimpy clothes to inappropriate hip hop music which is always extremely popular among young kids because it’s viewed as cool. Just like a huge fraction of celebrities, she’s selling s*x and a cool image, the only problem is she’s really too young to be doing that, and a massive proportion of her fans are far too young to be consuming it. She and similar tiktokers are essentially the next generation of Kardashian.
Gaby • Jun 14, 2020 at 3:56 pm
People like her because her videos were simple, aesthetically pleasing, and really coordinated. She also gained a huge following because she was beautiful. The coordination comes from her competitive dancing since she was 5 as well as prior to her “ tik tok game “ she and her sisters had modeled. She’s like other teenage girls because well she is a teen girl but more than anything as an “ influencer “ influenced more people to do tik tok dances. She’s a great influencer who doesn’t try super hard and uses her platform for good! Obviously there’s luck involved but I wouldn’t say there’s just “ no reason “. There’s a lot more famous influencers that shouldn’t have their fame and I genuinely don’t think she’s one of them. She just dances, supports good causes and doesn’t promote unhealthy trends. I like Charli I think she’s very refreshing and calling her “ undeserving “ is plain silly. It’s not a game of deserving, there’s many talented people that just don’t have a platform. She doesn’t need to “ deserve “ she has what she has and knows how to use it.
Beth • May 28, 2020 at 8:08 am
I think it is extremely pathetic that people find the need to hate and try and control the actions of a 16 year old. She has her own life and she can decide which way to live it. If you dislike it, ignore it. It isn’t your place to state your opinion if she hasn’t offended you in anyway. The simple answer as to why some talk badly about her is because they are jealous. There is no other logical answer. If you so strongly dislike the fact that she dances, do something with your life instead of wasting it bullying a 16 year old.
taanya • May 19, 2020 at 12:45 am
i don’t get it either. She is a great dancer and all, but the fame is a lot for just dancing for 15 seconds in a social media platform and gaining millions of followers.She is pretty cool and she inspires many teens to do what they love and she also stands against cyber bullying which is amazing but i really need help understanding all the ‘hype’ she is getting.
Not hating just stating.
natmat • May 7, 2020 at 7:05 am
She LITERALLY got famous for a dance that was NOT even hers…
Aiden • May 5, 2020 at 8:32 am
she really doesnt deserve the fame. All she does is dance. Like, Theres other good dancers that arn’t in the hype house. She should have known by now she just wants fame and money. I don’t undestand! Like could she just leave?!