From TikTok to the Grammys? Vocal powerhouse Lauren Spencer Smith connects with Gen Z on TikTok
The Grammy-winning singer is a self-described nerd.
“When you’re the youngest in a family and you’re the oldest, there’s a certain amount of pressure,” Smith told Rolling Stone in an interview. “I was the youngest to start school and I’m definitely the oldest to graduate. I’m the oldest to have a college degree. So when I started working in music, I thought maybe I could take the pressure off of having things come easy for me. I started doing TikTok in January with about 12 or 13 thousand other people. They’d say, ‘You can do anything you want.’ And I thought, ‘Okay, I’m not going to do something that I’m not comfortable with. It’s not right for everyone.’ It was just an outlet for me to kind of vent, to vent my frustration and anger.”
That anger is all directed at the singer and songwriter. Smith has recently made headlines for her vocal advocacy against gender discrimination and her vocal support of marriage equality.
The singer-songwriter, real name Lauren Spencer, is a self-described nerd with an “interesting nerd” (her words). The 32-year-old grew up in Ohio, but is now a multi-cultural person who embraces the melting pot that is the U.S. as much as the melting pot that is the LGBTQ community. But Spencer is also fiercely against gender and sexual inequality in the fashion industry – particularly when it comes to the portrayal of women specifically in music videos.
“There are men that have been dominating the music industry for the last 20 years that have been exploiting and pushing women into a position where they just don’t have the agency to say something [about] how they feel,” she explained. “And I’m like, ‘That’s a beautiful thing, but you have to put yourself out there,