Most popular creators on TikTok over the years, Rising Stars: List

• When TikTok first became popular, it was known for lip syncing, dancing, and viral challenges.
• But over the years, the app has become a place to grow an audience for creators of all categories.
• Every year since 2019, we’ve used data from Famous Birthdays to see breakout TikTokers.

When TikTok first became popular in 2019, Gen-Z users shared videos of themselves lip-syncing to popular songs, performing dance moves, and participating in viral challenges.

Since then, TikTok has become one of the hottest social media platforms, and the app has become a place for creators of all ages and content categories to grow their audience.

TikTok has changed—and so have its stars.

TikTok’s first domestic influencers, such as Charli D’Amelio and Addison Rae Easterling, rose to popularity with dance and lip-syncing videos from their childhood bedrooms. Now signed to Hollywood talent agencies, they’re making waves in more traditional entertainment roles.

In 2020, as a result of stay-at-home orders, TikTok continued to rise, and in parallel, the number of communities in the application. Influencer Hyram Yarbro shared skincare tips, Devon Rodriguez drew portraits on the subway, and Chriselle Lim revealed her life as a “rich mom” in fashion.

As the app evolved, new content trends took over, from comedy and cooking to book reviews. Gone are the days when the platform’s best-known creators dance.

Take Khaby Lame, for example, who reacts to videos in silence. He has amassed 155 million followers on the app, overtaking D’Amelio as the most followed creator on TikTok.

To show how the platform has evolved and which creators have become famous each year, we used data from the creator information site Famous Birthdays, which acts as an IMDB for creators, influencers and other notables. The platform has up to 25 million unique users per month, and the Famous Birthdays search engine is searched 20 million times per month, according to the site’s founder, Evan Britton.

From analyzing searches on its platform, Famous Birthdays can identify which creators are growing in real time. Addison Rae, who now has 88 million TikTok followers, identified Easterling as a breakout creator when she first gained momentum on TikTok and contacted her when she only had 300,000 followers, she told the LA Times.

While the data shows that creators can already break out on TikTok in many categories, the classic lip-syncing and dancing that the app was first known for can still propel new TikTokers to stardom.

Here are TikTok’s rising stars every year since 2019, according to Famous Birthdays: