Mae Stephens Is Evolving TikTok Pop From “ABCDEFU” To “IDGAF”

I've written about TikTok's lottery-like rags-to-riches fantasy in this column before -- it's what YouTube’s head of catalog Ryan Thornton once described to Billboard as the "potential of any song to go viral." About five years into TikTok's mainstream reign, countless unknown artists have benefited from that literal overnight virality and parlayed that success into also-viral dance challenges, lucrative brand partnerships, major-label deals, commercial radio play, chart dominance, enough Spotify streams to actually get paid, and then some.