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“I still don’t know you well enough for that.”
“But you let strangers see them.”
“It’s different if I know the person. Haven’t you ever felt that way? When you sing? That if there’s someone you know in the audience—and want to know better—you get nervous. It’s kind of like that.”
“You want to get to know me better?” I persisted, teasing.
“You’re missing the point.”
I held up my hands. “I get it. Do you have a lot of followers?”
“That’s a relative question,” she said. “What’s a lot? Some people have a couple hundred million followers, and there are lots of others between fifty and a hundred million. We’ve networked a lot, but we’re not in that league.”
“How many do you have?”
“Individually or as a group?”
“Both.”
“Almost two million for me, and over eight million for our group.”
I blinked, thinking about the 478 followers I had on all three of my social-media platforms combined. “You have over eight million followers on TikTok?”
“It’s crazy, right?”
“It’s hard to believe,” I said, not bothering to hide my disbelief. “How did you even get something like that off the ground?”
“A lot of work and even more luck. Stacy is a genius when it comes to building followers, and Holly is a video-editing goddess. We started by posting to one another’s accounts. Then we performed routines at campus events, and a lot of students followed us. After that, we found dance groups at other colleges that were doing the same thing that we were, and we linked up with those accounts, as well. And then, last November at a basketball game…” She hesitated. “You know basketball is really popular in Indiana, right? Anyway, the game was being broadcast nationally, and Stacy happened to know one of the camera guys. We were wearing T-shirts that had our TikTok account on the front, and the network went to one of those crowd shots during a time-out. The cameraman zoomed in on us as we performed one of our routines on the sidelines. And after that the camera kept returning to us during breaks, to the point that even the network announcers mentioned our TikTok name! Then a clip ended up on ESPN, a few influencers took note, and almost immediately our account began blowing up. Thousands of people, tens of thousands, hundreds…and it just kept snowballing from there.”
“Do you make money with that?” I asked, fascinated.
“We do, but only recently. Figuring out how to monetize it requires a lot more work, and there are decisions about brands and whether the company is honest or whether it’s something we’d be willing to promote. Stacy and Holly do most of that, too. I didn’t really have time for that, but the other three have started to make some money with it—and because they do all the work, it’s only fair. They could use it, too. Stacy is going to medical school this fall, and Holly has student loans. Ironically, she got a job with ESPN, if you can believe that. She wants to be a broadcaster.”
“And Maria?”
“Well, that depends on her audition with Mark Morris, but her mom is a choreographer who’s done some work on Broadway, so Maria choreographs all of our dances. Her mom actually sent my recordings to some managers she knows in Nashville, so we’ll see how that goes.”
In my limited experience, meetings seldom led anywhere—even the band I was in had meetings with potential managers, albeit minor-league ones—but I wasn’t about to tell her that.
“Sounds exciting,” I said. “I’m sure your presence on TikTok and Instagram will help get their attention.”
“I guess,” she offered. When I raised an eyebrow, she continued. “Honestly, I have mixed feelings about the whole social-media game and the constant effort to build followers.”
“But having an existing fan base can only help launch your career, right?”
“Maybe,” she said. “Our fans are almost all girls following us because of our looks and our dance moves. And I’ll admit that we play up our sexiness in the way we move and dress. It’s what sells.”
When she paused, I asked the obvious. “But?”
She sighed. “I want to be known for my singing, not because I’m a hot girl who can dance, you know? And then there’s the fact that social media isn’t necessarily a good thing for teenage girls. There’s so much editing that what they’re seeing isn’t exactly real, but it’s hard for people to separate the fantasy. It’s not as though we just walk out and dance without practicing or that we don’t spend a lot of time perfecting our hair and makeup and outfits before we film. So what’s the point in being regarded as an influencer—or, God forbid, a role model—if it’s all kind of fake?”
I said nothing, impressed she’d considered those things. I’ll be honest: I hadn’t. But then again, hardly anyone followed me, so what did it matter?
“Anyway, we’ll see how it goes,” she said, dismissing the subject with a wave of her hand. “Now I want to hear the song you wrote.”
I opened my case, taking a minute to tune my guitar and recall all the changes I’d made earlier. When I was ready, I launched into the opening stanzas, injecting additional energy to the chorus as I sang to her.
Morgan stared at me, a rapt smile playing on her lips. Watching her sway unconsciously in time with the music, I realized again how much she’d inspired the song. Not just the lyrics but the music itself; there was a bright energy and momentum to the song’s driving chorus, much like her.
