Ashton Ray
17-year-old Ashton Ray is a lot more than your average high schooler; the Dallas, TX native one of the newest TikToker stars to achieve viral success! He started this journey only a year ago, and has since gained an incredible outreach of over 1.3 million TikTok followers. His content spans between his two accounts: @swagmoneyashray and @str8.outta.therapy, and involves a heavy dose of hilarious comedic content. Ashton’s imitation of rapper Megan The Stallion spurred one of his most viral videos, gaining over one million likes. His content never fails to dissapoint, as TikToks of him responding to comments, duets with fellow creators, and dance videos have also earned the influencer a collective 54 million. We recently spoke to Ashton about the biggest perks of his social media popularity, future plans, and more!
Tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you get started on TikTok?
I recently turned 17 in late June. I was born and raised in Dallas, TX and I have wanted to pursue social media since I could remember. And now that dream is finally coming true! I got into TikTok one day on a whim while I was at home by myself. It was a very boring day so I finally decided to cave in and download TikTok even after I had spent months talking bad about the app, so my platform is kind of ironic haha.
In less than half a year, your account has gained over 500 thousand followers. What has the experience been like for you?
Yeah it's totally an insane number to wrap my head around. I just hit 800k on my main account and it's blowing my mind more and more the closer I get to a million. It's been one of the best (if not the best) experiences of my entire life. It was something I never imagined actually happening but the amount of love and support and amazing opportunities I get on a daily basis is something I'm forever grateful for.
What has been the best perk of your recent social media fame?
The best perk of social media fame has got to be all the people that message me on a daily basis telling me how much I inspire them and how much my videos make them laugh when they're upset. It inspires me to keep going and keep making content because yes it helps get my name out there but it also makes people feel good, which is what I feel is my gift in this lifetime.
Which video do you credit most for starting your success on the app?
So I'm a huge Megan Thee Stallion and I love her famous 'ah' adlib. So one night I made a video where I said "This is my formal announcement that whenever I type out ah (with the winking tongue out emoji) I'm saying "ah!" and It blew up really quickly. From then on, I made a lot of videos where I made the noise and people loved it because I do it so accurately. The video has 1.1 million likes and although it's not my biggest video it's definitely the one that launched my popularity.
Your content is largely comedy based. If you could go into any other form of content, which would it be and why?
I would love to move to YouTube at some point but right now I have a lot on my plate so there isn't much time for it but maybe in the future. Or I would love to really focus on my instagram and model full time and have TikTok be a side job.
Who have been some of your favorite TikTokers to collaborate with? Who are you choosing to work with for the dream collab?
I have yet to officially collab with any of my fellow creators. I've been involved in a few group videos but never an official one on one collab. I would love to collab with @guacamolly.com because we get compared soooo frequently and I feel like we could make something really funny. Or @nmillz1, he is one of my best friends and our humor bounces off each other so naturally that I feel like if we wanted to we could pull out something very original and entertaining.
Do you ever feel pressured to make content?
Oh absolutely, everyday honestly. I've built my account based on posting 5-10 videos every day and that can take a lot out of a person when you're doing it 7 days a week. As much as I love it, sometimes I need a break but when I do take breaks I'm swarmed with comments asking where my daily video spam is.
If you could have one superpower, which would it be, and why?
If I could have one superpower, it would for sure be the ability to control time. I mean think about it, you would never be late to anything, you can always give yourself extra time to complete a task, or get an extra hour of sleep if you needed idk. But yeah time control would be fun.
What can we catch you doing on your day off?
In. My. Bed. Asleep.
What's next for Ashton Ray?
Hopefully hitting a million soon, a verification badge would be a nice accessory too. I'm opening my own clothing business very soon so let's manifest that goes smoothly. Might branch into youtube or maybe one day move to New York to pursue fashion design and modeling but as of right now it just depends on where life takes me.