The recent release of "Whip My Hair" by Willow Smith daughter of Will and Jada Pinkett Smith epitomizes the recent shift in child stars' roads to success. While child stars have been around for decades, the means by which they have gained popularity have varied significantly over the years, from performing on live television to the Disney-characters-gone-pop-star route to the more recent YouTube phenomenon.
At only nine years old, Smith has already starred in a few movies, "I Am Legend" (2007) and "Kit Kittredge: An American Girl" (2008), and recently, she signed a record contract with hip-hop entrepreneur Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter's label Roc Nation. "Whip My Hair" leaked on the web in early September, but with the official release of the video on Oct. 18, even more people have been buzzing about a possible new pop star on the rise. The video already has over 7 million views on YouTube's music video channel VEVO.
Smith's rapid success is similar to the story of fellow young crooner Justin Bieber, coming on to the scene at only 15 years old. Unlike Smith, Bieber does not come from a famous family, but both of their hits have gained popularity through the Internet, specifically YouTube.
YouTube definitely helps with the careers of all musicians these days, as music is now easily accessible and advertises itself. If a song is popular on YouTube, people are more likely to go to iTunes or to a music store to purchase that song or album.
But it was not too long ago that young pop stars did not have the benefits of YouTube to start their careers. Young country/pop starlet Taylor Swift, for example, debuted her self-titled album at the age of 16 and gained her success through touring, right before the rise of YouTube, which also partially assisted in her rise.
Before that, the Disney channel franchise boosted the careers of Hilary Duff, Lindsay Lohan and Miley Cyrus in the late 1990s and the early 2000s. Disney continues to bolster the careers of young stars, however, from the "High School Musical" stars Vanessa Hudgens and Ashley Tisdale to Cyrus's contemporary Selena Gomez.
The popular MTV after-school-special countdown "Total Request Live" was also booming at that time, sparking the well-known careers of Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and Mandy Moore. In 2002, Canadian pop/punk star Avril Lavigne, only 17 years old at the time, also got her start on "TRL" with her hits "Complicated" and "Sk8er Boi." Back then, "TRL" was one of the only sources for viewing music videos, since MTV's other programming typically did not feature videos.
In the 1980s, however, MTV played videos nearly constantly, giving child pop stars Deborah Gibson and Tiffany their starts.
Let's not forget the child pop stars from before MTV existed, including Michael Jackson, starting at age 11 with the Jackson 5, and "Little" Stevie Wonder who also broke out on the scene at age 11. These two were exposed to the public through Dick Clark's "American Bandstand" and tours across the country.
Regardless of how they got their start, the child pop stars of the past and present dominate the charts and magazine covers, with their innocence and youthful appearance. Many child stars go on to have longevity in the music industry, while others "one-hit wonders" just serve to satisfy our nostalgia a few decades later.
Some would argue that the child pop stars of the past are more talented than the current "Internet generated" stars because they worked harder to gain their notoriety. Others will say stars like Bieber and Smith are more like the average teenager and inspire young people that they can become pop stars too.
But it seems that young artists are here to stay, because the younger generations of any decade are the ones who seem to listen to the most music, relate to artists of their own age and still hold on to their dreams of stardom.
