Junior Sydney Struchtemeyer has spent nearly her whole life singing. From her church to open mic night at restaurants to her bedroom, she loves to sing anywhere and everywhere. Since she was young, she has always found a sort of peace from listening and now playing music.  

For Struchtemeyer, music has been a constant way of life for many years, but recently, her recorded performances that used to solely inhabit her room have begun to spread and gain traction online. The social media platform TikTok, which hosts over 800 million users, allows users to post minute long videos with the opportunity for users to go viral in a nearly instantaneous manner, through the “For You Page” feature that allows users to scroll through a variety of videos. 

“I started my TikTok account in early February of last year,” Struchtemeyer said. “I downloaded the app for fun and to distract myself from quarantine and Covid.” 

After posting her first video under the username @sydneyfrommars, she immediately attracted attention from app users across the nation and the world. Struchtemeyer has gained a following of over 109.5 thousand people and racked up a total of over 3.1 million likes across all of her videos. Struchtemeyer’s most popular video sits at 1.6 million views and 429.3 thousand likes. 

“I never thought this is where I would be,” Struchtemeyer said. “When I originally downloaded the app, I never thought my account would take off like it did.” 

Tik Tok is not the only place that Struchtemeyer has found fame. She has now recorded five songs and posted them onto Spotify for the world to listen to. She currently has 619,503 monthly listeners on the app and her songs have been played over six million times. On the streaming platform Sound Cloud, she has released 16 songs and has a total of over 250 thousand streams. 

Struchtemeyer credits a lot of her success to her biggest inspirations in the music industry. These artists have inspired her music taste and her style as an artist. She often post covers of songs from her inspiration and idols on Tiktok. 

Through social media, so many people, including Struchtemeyer, have been able to create futures for themselves and share their talent with the world. 

“I am so thankful for the opportunity Tiktok gave me by creating a platform for me to share my music with the world.”