Today we’d like to introduce you to Owen Holt.
Hi Owen, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
One day I was just playing Minecraft with the boys and my sister knocks on my door and says “Owen get out here and be in this TikTok”. I barely even knew what a Tiktok was so of course I say no. She asks again. I say no. She asks a third time and finally, I give in and say yes. She had 7 followers and filmed me lip-syncing to Justin Bieber’s “love me”. She posts it and we both thought nothing of it until we wake up the next morning with millions of views and tens of thousands of followers. Fast forward a few weeks, she’s off to college without any time to continue posting on this TikTok account with 1 video that’s just of me lip-syncing. So as any natural human being, I offer to take over the account. She says yes and I start to study the algorithm. I study what works and what doesn’t. I start posting consistently and boom, a second video with 10m views. Then another video with 10m views. Then another video with 8m views. Another with 5m views. Then back to 10m. And I’m gaining almost a hundred thousand followers a week.
At this time the VP of talent & development at Paramount, RJ Larese & Linda Vilay, are looking for talent to cast creators in a new reality competition show called ‘Next Influencer”. They reach out to a few content houses across the country, and after watching over a hundred self-tape auditions, I end up being one of the nine chosen to be on season one of the next influencer. Lots of drama, lots of fighting, lots of competing, but I end up on top and win the first season of the show.
The prize for winning the show was my own “spinoff” show, but I had another direction I wanted to take things since I don’t have much of a drama-filled life, so I pitched a couple of things- hosting the next season Next influencer (the show I had just won) and hosting a talk show where I would interview the latest trending influencers. Sure enough, the streak continued as both ideas I had pitched were successful, causing me to move out to LA for the summer just two days after my 19th birthday.
The plan was live in LA for the summer, shoot a few episodes for the talk show, then go back to Orlando to finish School. Although I thought I had a great plan and had it all figured out, God had other plans for me. Bigger and better plans. Paramount offered me a consulting job to work on the social team to help with a strategy on short-form content, an absolute once in a lifetime job at 19 years old. “Vibe Room” the talk show I was hosting, gets green-lit to shoot for 52 more weeks and 40 more episodes. Summer goes by, I switch all my classes in school to fully online, and I’m a full-time TV host and consultant for Paramount. That was almost two years ago, and that’s just the start.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It has been generally a smooth road for me. Being 19 and had just moved to LA, I was bound to make mistakes, but it’s about how I can learn from them and bounce back to become stronger and smarter.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I specialize in hosting. I’ve hosted the last two seasons of next influencer. I’ve hosted the Kids Choice Awards Orange carpet the last two years. I was the host of the Boys of Summer tour last summer. I’ve hosted over 50 episodes of my talk show “Vibe Room” on AwesomenessTV.
I think I’m most proud of the friends I’ve made out here in LA. It’s very rare to find genuine people in a new city sometimes, so finding your people has got to be one of my most prized accomplishments so far.
Before we let you go, we’ve got to ask if you have any advice for those who are just starting out?
My advice to those just starting out is if you’re thinking about making that leap. DO IT. Wanna move to a new city? Do it. Wanna try out a new career path? Do it. The last thing in life you wanna do is to live with a “what if” mindset.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/owenholt/?hl=en
Image Credits
Ghetty Images
