unmuted

Rossi Ivanova

Tate McRae at the 2025 VMAs Red Carpet. Glamour Magazine “Tate McRae Is the Leader of the Sheer-Dress Pack at the VMAs 2025“, September 8th, 2025

Over the past decade, the entertainment industry, specifically the musical industry, has undergone a major transformation that has reshaped how celebrities rise to fame, as well as how audiences connect with them. One of the artists that embodies this shift perfectly is none other than Tate McRae, who rose from a dance star, to a YouTuber, to a massive global pop sensation that reflects exactly what the new ‘pop’ culture in the industry embodies. At this point in time, fame doesn’t just revolve around labels, it is all about online presence, most popularly TikTok. It provides a new, and unique, approach to marketing yourself, and it spreads faster than any old traditional marketing technique. McRae’s career path offers an interesting case study on how Gen-Z celebrities are leveraging digital platforms as a way to build an audience, shape culture, and redefine what it means to be a global sensation. 

Before she became a chart-topping artist, McRae was mostly known in the dance community from her appearances on So You Think You Can Dance: The Next Generation. However, her transition into music didn’t go the traditional route of producers discovering young talent, signing them, and pushing them onto the mainstream radio for a one hit wonder, in Mcrae’s case, it is quite the contrary. She gained her momentum for popularity by uploading personal, simple videos of songs she had written in her bedroom, and because of this vulnerability, showed her at her most natural, unpolished, true self, with no elaborate sets or styling, just a girl in her bedroom with her piano. 

One of Tate McRae’s early YouTube song writing videos. YouTube: Tate McRae “i wrote a song… one day“, October 20th, 2017

In today’s industry, digital presence and the origin of the artist is a crucial part of their identity. As an ideal Gen-Z figure, McRae started her career off with major leverage and audience, as opposed to other artists of her generation, simply due to her personal brand and community she had already created online. Her audience had an easy time relating to her songs, due to them being emotional and unfiltered, leading McRae to expand her fanbase while continuing to explore, learn, and develop her sound, in contrast to previous pop singers who were brought to the public completely polished. Fans were able to feel that they were a part of her growth. Due to her genius approach, this created a closer bond with her fan base; stronger than what could have been created by standard publicity. She later moved onto doing more dance hits, even going as far as making a song with a renowned DJ, Tiesto, called “10:35”.

When TikTok was introduced, her fanbase made sure she was heard and started circulating her music on the platform. This rapidly accelerated her rise to fame as TikTok has become a sort of hit-making platform, songs can explode in popularity overnight due to the fact that there can be multiple forms of videos that can be done with them. From lip-syncing, to dancing, to inspiring a trend, McRae’s newer songs naturally thrived in this environment. One of her most famous songs “You Broke Me First”, didn’t climb up the charts due to it being played on the radio, it was due to the amount of use it got on TikTok, which didn’t just amplify her visibility, but rather encouraged and engaged audience participation through means of creative freedom. The shift that TikTok managed to create has broader cultural implications, it demonstrates how celebrities today are increasingly being created by audiences, rather than the mainstream media. Through her strategic social media presence, where she shares behind-the-scenes videos, vlogs, and fun personal videos that she has with her friends and co-workers, McRae leans into the less hierarchical and more conversational nature of the celebrity-fan interaction, while still keeping it professional. At the end of the day, the effects of these seamless and meaningful interactions with fans is a type of fame that makes audiences feel more integrated into the daily youth culture, it is less detached and more ‘peer-like’.

“Tate McRae is proof that some pop stars are born this way. The Calgary, Alberta, native appears to have just exploded into our consciousness over the past year or so, but take a dive into the 21-year-old singer’s backstory, and you can see that she’s been laying the groundwork for her chart domination for more than half her life.” (Gil Kaufman, Billboard)

Still, what makes McRae’s path so unique is how she balances her ‘digital-born’ authenticity with the characteristics expected from contemporary pop stars. Her performances, choreography, and visuals at her shows exemplify a professionalism showing that she is on a path to fame that she is not planning to set aside anytime soon. All of her professionalism doesn’t just compliment her work, but also directly supports her online-made persona, rather than replacing it. In this way she bridges what past and new celebrity models are, proving that having digital roots and a mainstream fandom are crucial in today’s industry, and are no longer separate worlds, but rather deeply interconnected ones. 

Tate McRae’s story is not just one of a personal success narrative, it is rather a reflection of a cultural shift in how artists are marketed, discovered, and embraced. She exemplifies a new model of celebrity, one that is shaped by audience participation, intimacy, and the growing accessibility social media provides in the rise to fame side of the sphere. As long as platforms like TikTok continue to be used for the support of upcoming artists, to help shape and promote them, it can be called a new blueprint for the stars of tomorrow.