Gigi Perez's Journey: From TikTok Newcomer to Viral Sensation

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Gigi Perez is an acoustic indie pop artist born in New Jersey, raised in Florida, and now based in Brooklyn. Her music often explores themes of sexual awakening and religious trauma. Her viral hit "Sailor Song" has dominated the viral charts for weeks. Like many artists, her journey to the top of the charts comes from a personal connection with her audience and mastery of the language of short-form video. Her simple approach to making videos that embody the emotion of her songs is an amazing case study.

Here’s how she went from her first video on TikTok to blowing up:

Gigi's TikTok journey began in 2019, making her account one of the oldest I've ever seen for an artist. Scrolling through her profile, you can see the evolution of her content and following. She started with just a few thousand views, slowly building up to tens of thousands, and now regularly hitting hundreds of thousands or even millions of views per video.

Showing Up Doesn’t Mean Progress

One of the key lessons from Gigi's journey is the importance of consistency and persistence. She learned the language of TikTok: posting regularly, even when views are low. You can see most of her videos sitting in low views, and If you keep scrolling, you’ll slowly see her views growing to tens of thousands over the years. This rollercoaster of engagement is common on TikTok, and Gigi's success shows why it's crucial to keep showing up, even when it feels like you're not making progress.

Vulnerability is Currency

Vulnerability is the central focus of Gigi's content strategy, with lots of simple videos on TikTok. Gigi stands out with her great singing and songwriting. She gets people to connect to the story. Vulnerability is some of the greatest currency in music. You need to be able to express yourself about your truth. It doesn't have to be a cataclysmic-level event. It can just be regular baseline emotions other people will probably relate to. Vulnerability inspires a connection because when you honestly and openly broach topics that people don’t talk about at face value every day, they can relate with you.

About a year ago, she posted a video about her sister passing away, a hard-to-say-out-loud story, which gathered nearly 2 million views. Her vulnerability hit me like a ton of bricks, and with the accompaniment of her song embodying the emotion, it engages viewers in the emotion she’s opening up about. It’s simple, but many musicians neglect it. The visual representation of her lyrics helps viewers connect more deeply with the music.

This is what she’s done over and over again, showing up for years consistently, and after time, things start to work. A lot of people seem to open doors for her when they hear the honesty in her lyrics and what she's doing. She learned how to tell her story and helped get people to root for her.

Making songs about religious trauma or death and showing up authentically playing guitar in bed depressed connects with listeners. Being overly honest leads to the vulnerable connections that make fans feel closer to you, and fans financially support and deepen relationships with the artists they feel the most connection to.

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