Like Justin Bieber, the career of Australian pop star Troye Sivan was born on the internet.
At 12 years old he started a YouTube channel. Now, 16 years later, he has tens of millions of TikTok and Instagram followers.
“Connection” and “telling stories” is the key to his success, the 28-year-old told ABC News Breakfast.
“I think it’s really fun … especially TikTok. I think there was a moment where it felt like you had to go do some dance that I just really didn’t want to do,” he said.
“Over time, I think it’s changed — that it’s really just like storytelling — which is something that I’ve always loved doing.”
It’s through a call out on Instagram where he found his inspiration for his first single from his upcoming album Something to Give Each Other.
“I got so many messages with some really, really great stuff but weirdly this one came from someone that I actually knew in real life,” he said.
“He sent me what was the beginning of Rush … basically like the chant and the track and I knew instantly that it was special. I was obsessed with it.”
Troye wrote the song across two days at his studio in Melbourne, with help from a friend on FaceTime from Los Angeles.
Rush has been streamed more than 100 million times after debuting in July across several charts around the world.
But it’s not just the music that’s caught the attention of many.
A video clip representing his experience in the LGBTQIA+ community has been widely celebrated.
“For me to be able to see myself in media and in pop culture — it wasn’t really something that I had growing up. I didn’t really have anyone that I looked up to that I saw myself in them,” he said.
Shot over two days in Berlin, the video clip shows a bunch of people partying and dancing together.
“I just wanted to get something real. I have this fantasy of doing this, like, big pop campaign that reminds me of the pop stars that I grew up loving and at the same time infusing like rawness and like genuine emotion … like the euphoria of being on the dance floor,” he said.
The video clip, which he’s described as “all of my experiences from a chapter where I feel confident, free and liberated”, has also received criticism.
Some fans in the LGBTQIA+ community have aired their thoughts over their perceived lack of body diversity.
“I think the reason why I kind of took it on the chin and heard it, and actually, you know, agreed, and I didn’t feel stressed at the same time, because I think if you look back throughout my videos … that I’ve made, diversity has always been something that we’ve really strived for, and I think achieved.”
His accomplishments are shared with his family in Australia, when he visits home after being overseas.
“That’s the only hesitation that I have with the lifestyle that I live now is that very easily, your whole life can become about just you. And so, I think for me when I come home, and I get to exist, not just for myself, but for my family and my friends, that’s when I’m at my happiest.”
Troye has hinted at a potential tour next year, revealing he wrote the album with that in mind.
“We really wrote the album as a show, it’s a live show. It’s just waiting to happen.”
