16-year-old TikTok star Dylan Conrique on making music and the challenges facing Gen Z
Welcome to CHEW THE FAT WITH…, our long-form profile series where we invite you to sit down with fashion’s next generation as they dig deep into their memories. To chew some fat - defined as an informal conversation brimming with small talk - we encourage you to pull up a chair and take a big old bite as we spill the tea on the life and work of the industry’s need-to-knows. Just remember to mop up after yourself.
When I was 16-years-old, social media was a relatively new phenomenon. I updated my MySpace and Tumblr daily, Facebook was the ‘cool’ place to be and getting 10 likes on an Instagram post was considered a lifetime achievement. For Generation Z, those born post 9/11 who have only ever known high-speed broadband and touch-screen smartphones, social media has become a lifeline and a career; communities have been born, friends and family reconnected from across the globe. Platforms like Instagram and TikTok have cultivated a new kind of celebrity, one where traditional pathways to fame have been bypassed, replaced by a direct connection to fans and followers at our fingertips. For new kid on the block, 16-year-old DYLAN CONRIQUE, the internet has given her a virtual stage where she can share her music, style and life with an ever-increasing fan base - all 2.4 million of them on TikTok.
Although we’ve all grown up dreaming of being a pop star (I definitely still do), not many can claim to have achieved it. For Conrique, she’s well on her way to doing just that. With music always a dream of the young star’s since she was three years old performing for her parents, she counts SELENA GOMEZ and country rock band, RASCAL FLATTS, as her inspiration: “The combination really shaped both how I write songs and what melodies that I lean towards.” The singer’s latest hit, anti-prom anthem After All, is a song for her generation, about “someone who is afraid to take risks because they’re so nervous that it might go wrong...Like thinking that I don’t want to date someone, but maybe it could end up being fun. I feel like that push/pull feeling is something that a lot of people can relate to.”
The struggle is real, now more than ever. A year into constant fluxes between lockdown and freedom, Covid has played with our hearts and minds more than any boyfriend ever could. The feeling of anxiety has been a steady, if not gushing, stream over the past few months for everyone, particularly the youth who have been unable to do any number of things from going to school, meeting friends, and working, integral activities that aid in the development and transition into adulthood. “I think mental health is a big challenge for teens right now. Everyone is going through a lot, and quarantine doesn't help either because we've been stuck inside for so long. We’re so stuck inside our heads and don’t get to really talk to people in person. It definitely has an effect on me and my friends.”
Has that exacerbated the challenges many Gen Z’ers face on the URL and IRL? “We’re complicated for sure. All over the place in some ways. I think we’re more sensitive than older generations, but that’s because we’re all online where everyone has access to give their opinions. Before people would talk behind your back, in person with their friends, but now people just leave hateful comments behind their computer screens.” With that in mind, Conrique wants her peers to know it’s okay to be themselves and that “everything that you see on the internet is filtered, so don't let it get you down if it seems like other people are living perfect lives, they’re not.”
It can be difficult separating yourself from your online persona. Pressures including follower counts and the number of likes we receive are things that no other generation has ever had to deal with. Even with applications like Instagram offering trials in hiding the number of likes our posts receive, the compulsion to constantly refresh our notifications can be unbearable and all-consuming. How does Conrique deal with drawing the line between the personal and the professional? She doesn’t. “You know - it’s hard, but I also like being honest with everyone who follows me. Like if I'm having a bad day I'm gonna tell them I’m having a bad day, I’m not gonna put on a fake smile. I want them to know the real me.”
Perhaps Conrique is the refreshing, new face of celebrity that we need: one who isn’t into the fakeness of social media and showing a life that isn’t really hers. After all, she’s just a teenage girl making music that she likes, who spends her downtime “watching Netflix, laying in bed or playing video games.” She misses her friends and her hometown, dreams of selling out Madison Square Garden one day in the future, and is just hopeful for Covid to end (aren’t we all).
Does she look forward to getting older? “I really do - mainly because I want a car and want to drive everywhere haha,” Conrique explains. “I’m much more into cars than most people know. I always wanted a truck growing up because everyone had those back in my hometown. Guys were also the ones mainly driving trucks, and I wanted to break that mould and be a girl driving a truck. Now that I’m in LA I’ve gotten into Range Rover Sports…That probably won’t happen soon, but a girl can dream.”