Ariel Martin, better known online as Baby Ariel, has been dominating social media for the last couple of years. After getting her start on lip-syncing app musical.ly in 2015, the 17-year-old gained millions of followers across multiple social media platforms and now juggles a role on digital series Baby Doll Records, her own YouTube channel and a budding music career with fan-favorite singles like “Aww” and “Perf.” On October 9, Ariel will release her first book, Dreaming Out Loud, which combines personal anecdotes with advice for her fans about dealing with romance, drama, and the other hardships of teenage life. Ariel chatted with Her Campus about her love for her fans, her struggles with the writing process and her journey to becoming a pop recording artist.
Her Campus: We’re so excited for Dreaming Out Loud. What made you decide to write a book?
Baby Ariel: I get a lot of questions online from my fans asking for advice about school and about social media, because it’s such a new world and it’s crazy. I just wanted to give them a more personal way of connecting with me, and some personal advice from my own experiences on social media, and with kids at school, and with love and relationships. [I wanted to] help them know that they have somebody who cares about them, and they have somebody who understands them and what they’re going through.
HC: We think that will be such a great resource for people, especially your younger fans. What main message do you hope your fans can take away from Dreaming Out Loud?
BA: Hopefully to dream in color, always. And to dream out loud, and just to be themselves and not worry about what anybody says about them.
HC: Writing a book about your life is obviously a very personal process, especially if you want to keep it real and be honest that things aren’t always as picture perfect as they may seem on social media. What was the hardest part of the writing process for you?
BA: On social media, I’m able to talk about my life—I talk about my crushes and my friends and all the happy things that go on. But in this book I really wanted to dig deeper and talk about those tough times I had with family, with friends, with breakups. Sometimes [those experiences] are not the easiest to talk about, but I really wanted to talk about them and get into that place.
Going in depth and getting into detail was difficult, but I wanted to do it.
HC: You mentioned social media—you have millions of followers, which must be a huge amount of pressure, especially because you’re still so young. How do you stay grounded, knowing you’re constantly in the public eye and all these people look to you for advice and support?
BA: I’m lucky—I have the most wonderful family, the most wonderful friends. And for me, it’s because of the way I was raised and the people I surround myself with. It was never a question of not remaining humble and grounded, because it’s always been who I am, and who my family is, and who my friends are. They’ve really helped me stay true to who I am and where I’m from.
HC: And as for your fans, you’ve made YouTube videos about surviving school, and periods, and other things they may be going through, to make sure they feel supported and that they can look to you for advice. Do you ever feel a responsibility to act as a role model to them?
BA: It’s not so much that I feel responsible, it’s more that that’s just what I want to do. I love them so much, and I care about them so much, and so naturally that’s just what I want to do. Because I get all these questions online from them—that’s partially also why I am creating this book, to give them even more advice—I want to give them as much as I possibly can, because I genuinely want to help them on their first day of school. I want to help them through whatever they’re going through so they know they’re not alone.
HC: It’s so awesome that you want to give back to them and support them like they support you, because not everyone does that. We also wanted to talk about your music. It’s clear that you love music, considering you got your start doing videos on musical.ly. But did you always know you wanted to create original songs or was that something that came to you later?
BA: 100 percent. I think I wrote my first song when I was, like, five years old and in pre-school. My dad is a musician, so it’s always been a part of my life and my upbringing. I’ve been taking piano classes and singing lessons my whole life.
I knew I wanted to do it one day, it was just a matter of when I was confident in my music enough to actually release it, and [when I would] have the right people and support. I knew I always wanted to do it because it’s what I love to do and it’s what makes me happy.
HC: How did you find musical.ly? How did you decide that was something you wanted to do?
BA: I found musical.ly about three years ago, during the summer. I came across the app randomly, and I started creating these lip-syncing videos on it, without any real intention of going anywhere with it. I just made them for fun.
People really started to connect with my videos and from there, I began to research other social media influencers and social media platforms, and figured out how people actually do social media for a living. They do social media, and then they’re able to pull music into that, or pull acting into that, or even pull a book into their social media world, and so that was when I realized, okay, this is what I want to do, let’s continue with it. Totally random, really.
HC: It’s great, though, when something unexpected can turn into one of the best decisions you’ve ever made. That must be really cool.
BA: Oh, 100 percent. It’s crazy how that happens—it’s funny, during my elementary school life and my middle school life, I always loved to sing and act, but there was never a club at school that had acting and singing and video and all this stuff. So once I found musical.ly and social media and this whole world, I knew this was what I wanted to do, and I just went for it.
HC: As far as creating original music goes, what was the transition like going from lip syncing to making a career in the music industry? Were you ever nervous about that?
BA: I was super nervous! It’s funny because in my personal life, it was never a real transition because I’ve been singing my whole life. But publicly, it was definitely a transition.
I was nervous, of course, [about] what people were going to say, but once I got over that fear, I was confident in my music and my family loves it, my friends love it. I realized my fans will love it, and it’s going to be fine. I can’t worry about what people are going to think, or how well it’s going to do. I do it because I love it and because I hope that it will make my fans happy. That’s all I really want with it. As long as it’s going to make at least one kid happy, that’s all that matters to me.
HC: It’s definitely made people happy. On all your music videos, people in the comments really seem to love them.
BA: Oh, thank you!
HC: Of course! So, can we expect more new music in the near future? What’s next for you?
BA: You can expect tons of new music in the future, of course! I’m doing my book tour at the end of this year, and I just finished filming something for a month that I can’t say anything about, but it’s going to be crazy. And I’ll of course be working on my writing and my acting and my singing.