Popular TikToker Bella Poarch released the debut music video for her song “Build a B*tch” this past Friday:  

 

 

If you aren’t familiar with her, Bella has a huge following and is most known for having TikTok’s most liked video ever. Right now, the video posted back in August of 2020 has around 49 million likes and over 603 million views (I still double-take every time I see the stats). 

@bellapoarch

To the 🐝 🐝 🐝 #fyp

♬ M to the B - Millie B

From then, she was most known for her facial expressions alongside songs, and even started a TikTok trend. She also posted some videos of her singing and now she’s signed to Warner Records. Dua Lipa, Lizzo, and Coldplay are just some of the other artists who are on the label, so this is a big deal. It was inevitable. Not only does she have almost 68 million followers on TikTok, but she also gets crazy amounts of views on her videos; 30 million views is not a farfetched milestone for her, because she has surpassed that number many, many times. What made this debut successful wasn’t just the amazing production of the song, but also her ability to move her fanbase over to the music side of things. 

 

The “Build a B*tch” video surpassed 10 million views a little over 17 hours after its release, and reports say it was the most viewed video during its first 24 hours. 

The song is all about accepting yourself and not letting anyone try and make you want they want you to be. The song itself is also catchy and something I could see becoming a radio hit, and definitely a song that can become a big TikTok trend. Bella didn’t waste any time promoting it on TikTok herself, which has already sparked the beginnings of a trend. The production quality here is also pretty high level, considering she’s so new to the scene which means they pulled all of the stops, a sign of how much faith the label had in the project. 

 

Appearances from fellow social media stars like Larray and Bretman Hall were also included, which is a fun shoutout to where things all started for her. However, a resurfaced TikTok suggests that James Charles was supposed to have an appearance which ended up being cut from the final which is no surprise considering the mess he’s in now. 

 

Something notable about the drop of Bella’s video is that she was competing with Dixie D’Amelio’s music video for “F***BOY”. It’s a battle of TikTokers on the charts. To make it even more competitive, Olivia Rodrigo dropped her video for “good 4 u” on the same day. And yet, despite Bella being the newest entry, she’s risen to the top with over 55 million views right now. Olivia is at 28 million, while Dixie only has around 4.5 million on hers. Not that this means Bella is more popular than Olivia, because Olivia just had a really successful weekend with her appearance on SNL and is doing better on the charts. But it does show us the power of viewership from TikTok, especially since this is Bella’s debut. She’s been able to retain her following ever since that insanely viral video from last August by staying active on the platform and making her fans excited for what’s to come. She also knows exactly what her viewers want to see, and plays into it (hence there being a focus on facial expressions in the music video). And her voice is solid too. So she’s now expanding her fanbase from where she began, on TikTok, with major label support. We’ll just have to see if she’ll be able to separate herself from just being the viral TikToker and shift into the mainstream music industry. This, though, is how far we’ve come in just two years since Lil Nas X dropped “Old Town Road” on TikTok. We now have multiple TikTok artists coming through the door he kicked open and rising up the charts. It remains to be seen if they can stay there, and maintain their popularity. But it’s undeniable now that after Lil Nas X’s disruption of the industry, musicians from TikTok are becoming more and more the norm.