Step Inside The Life of Tik Tok Star: Ryan Shakes

Ryan Wayne Shakes is a famous social media personality and entrepreneur from the most beautiful part of Florida: West Palm Beach, Florida. He was born on December 3, 2001 and he rose to worldwide recognition via social media from posting comedic, trendy videos on popular social media app platforms. As of May 1, 2020, he has accumulated over 5 million followers on the social video sharing app TikTok.

We had the privilege and opportunity to interview him and here's what he had to say:

When did you reach 5,000,000 TikTok followers?

The date I reached 5,000,000 TikTok followers was May 1st, 2020

Wow Congrats! How was that experience?

It felt great you know I’ve been on TikTok for a really long time ever since musical.ly and I had started for fun.

Okay so you didn’t start from TikTok?

Nah I didn’t, many people think that when like they get to first know me or see me, their like “wow this kid has all these followers” and then might treat me like in a different way type thing but what people fail to realize is I’ve been hustling and been producing content on this app for years way before it was “cool”. And I had nobody watching at the time so yeah. And some people still think TikTok is “lame” and stuff like that but them are the same ones that have it downloaded on their phone and is listening to “Why did you say so?” everyday I’m just like okay.

Wow so you mentioned that for years you’ve been posting on the app musical.ly?

Exactly I’ve downloaded the app late 2016 and I think it was like 2018 or something like that when they transitioned it think the app to TikTok.

Interesting, so I know you said that little to nobody was watching you on the for years, when did you start to pick up more notice and attention on the app.

I like that question haha yeah so it was I think where I started to pick up a lot more attention on the app specially was 2018. More and more people started following me and my social media was growing. And when I started getting attention in public that happened last year of 2019 many people started to recognize me like for example I walked into the mall it would be like 5 or more people come up to me for pictures and stuff like that.

That sounds really cool, how has that transition from not a lot of people watching you literally like in one year and then the following year after like connect to you?

Yeah it’s really shocking cause of course you know you have over 1,000,000 people following you on this app makes sense that people are going to recognize you or come up to to in public, but it’s not that it’s the fact that you literally never met any of these people before and the fact that they know me is so wild. And when my fans come up to me it’s like we already have some sort of connection type of thing and I love them so much.

Who did you grow up with?

I grew up with my 3 other blood siblings. And my mom

So did you grew up with both of your parents?

Nah my parents separated when I was 10 years old.

How was that setup growing up it must have been very hard?

Yeah it did affect me a lot growing up as a kid. As well as my 3 other siblings it affected all of us. We stayed with our mom and how it was setup was remained with her in Central Florida and our dad would schedule weekly visitations to see all of us.

How did all of that work out?

Haha it didn’t last too long, I don’t want to get into any details but yeah.

How was school growing up for you?

Growing up for me school wasn’t really my cup of tea, and since I’ve moved so much I’ve never really built true long relationships with anybody.

What made you move a lot?

Due to like the financial situation with my parents that’s what’s I believe what resulted into that.

So was this before or after your parents separated?

We were always moving back and forth like I never really understood why but that’s what it was and personally I never liked it cause it’s like say I made friends like with someone and I hear that we’re moving it was like damn, so after I knew this was probably gonna keep happening after a couple times I mainly stayed to myself and didn’t make much friends.

Dang so if you moving homes frequently did that also mean that you moved plenty schools? As well because you mentioned that with your friends.

Exactly so each time we moved we moved schools also. For me personally I moved like a total of 6 different counties over Florida as well as attending over 10 public schools. Polk Avenue Elementary School in Polk County from like kindergarten to forth grade, Hillcrest Elementary School for 5th grade. Monarch High School in Broward County for 11th grade and some of 12th grade before dropping out. And many other schools from Central to South Florida.

So you didn’t graduate high-school?

haha yeah I did, I did drop out October of 2019 for like 6 months because my busy class schedule was detrimental and getting in the way of my social media career. School is built for workers not Entrepreneurs so if you’re kinda like me just know school wasn’t meant for you and that’s okay, School is not meant for everybody. But the only reason I decided to go back and finish which I went to a virtual school online was mainly because my mom wanting me to graduate so I didn’t want to disappoint her even though I didn’t need to go back.

What advice do you have for younger kids that have a dream or passion that they want to achieve?

Literally follow your heart. You have to listen to yourself and understand your own intuition. Nobody can really change what your gut feeling is so for example if you really enjoy singing and someone tells you “oh you don’t sound good” you probably won’t let that affect you because you just really enjoy singing so you won’t stop and you won’t stop! You’ll keep going and that is what you need to do is keep pushing and never give up. Understand that everything takes time you may really want something really bad but you have to be patient, being patient is key as well as being consistent be consistent in what your doing you will get better as you go if you keep doing it. It’s like riding a bike at the first times of you getting on it you may have fell a few times but then you eventually got better at it it applies same way to what your doing!! Focus on your thoughts your thoughts become your reality so always think positively about situations even in not so great situations. What you think about is what you become.

We know that Ryan can do anything he sets his mind to and we are excited to see what he does next! Make sure you follow him for more updates!

https://www.tiktok.com/@itsryanshakes?lang=en