Troye Sivan Archives - DU Beat - Delhi University's Independent Student Newspaper

In our society, there is a stigma that surrounds social media influencers. Mainstream media today continues to discredit them for their talents and treat them insignificantly because of the unconventional way they achieve fame. Their success is reduced to an attribute to mere luck. The society always puts them a rank below conventional pop artists and actors. Troye Sivan is one such social media influencer who broke the glass ceiling and successfully transitioned into the music industry as a pop artist.

Troye Sivan has accumulated the type of success that every YouTuber dreams of. He started his journey through his YouTube channel in 2007. His mixture of comedy vlogs and song covers, as well as a few original parody songs, caught the attention of many as he currently has over 4 million subscribers on his main channel and over 2 million on his official music channel with Vevo.

Troye released his first album called “Blue Neighborhood” in the month of December in 2015. It soon became a hit and was noticed by pop icons like Taylor Swift and Lorde. He was even nominated for three MTV Video Music Awards (VMA’s) for his debut album and won the “Best Song of the Year” award at the 2016 ARIA Music Awards.

Despite his tremendous success in music, Troye is also breaking barriers in terms of being an icon and inspiration for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer+ (LGBTQ+) Community. One of the most viewed videos on his YouTube channel is his “Coming Out” video in which he openly declares that he identifies as gay. His Blue Neighborhood trilogy reflects the hardships that are faced by the members of the LGBTQ+ community and he has even helped his fans come out at his concert to their parents.

His success is not only limited to music. Troye Sivan was recently named the face of Valentino’s Men Spring-Summer 2018 collection and has also starred in multiple films like the X-Men series.

His transition from being a social media influencer to the mainstream music industry was certainly not an easy one. However, his work ethic and talent is what outshone the stigma that surrounds social media influencers and helped him have an immensely flourishing debut. He is not active on YouTube anymore and posts very rarely however he interacts with his fans regularly on other social media websites like Twitter and Instagram. He recently released two singles from his upcoming album called “My My My” and “The Good Side” and got the opportunity to perform at Saturday Night Live (SNL) as their musical guest.

Feature Image Credits: Coup De Main Magazine

Bhavya Banerjee

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Troye Sivan’s much-talked about second major-label EP WILD released on September 4 and has already earned shoutouts from the likes of Taylor Swift and Sam Smith on Twitter. Along with excellent electro-pop music, with bass drops and emotional lyrics that will either calm you down- thanks to Troye’s soothing vocals- or make your stomach lurch with feelings, the EP has also resulted in a three-part video series called ‘Blue Neighbourhood’ which features songs off the EP.

Troye, who publicly came out as gay in 2013 and has since then used his massive fan following to impact the lives of many, has once again used the platform he has to present a simple, non-stereotypical portrayal of a love story between two boys who go from being childhood best friends to falling in love. The trailer of the trilogy that teased at love blossoming between the two friends despite facing odds like their families being at strife and homophobia at the hands of one of the characters garnered a lot of buzz, and with the first two parts of the series already out and toying with everyone’s feelings, it’s clear that the young, aesthetic looking 20 year old singer-songwriter (and actor and YouTuber; he’s a man of many talents) has given the world a heart-tugging LGBTQ romance that doesn’t fetishize or stereotype their relationship or their identities.

The first video, which is of the title track WILD, focuses on the friendship of the two boys from their childhood, with intermittent glances of what it has progressed to. The mostly happy lingering feelings from WILD pretty much get trampled on in the second video FOOLS, which shows Troye and his partner (played to perfection by Matthew Eriksson) wanting to explore their relationship but stopped short because of a certain other character. Ending on a cliffhanger, the video left a lot of people who watched it begging the singer to release the third part early.

As someone who has listened to the EP repeatedly since its release and has followed the series since the release of the first video, I find the narrative fascinating. If a ‘feels’ trip is what you’re looking for, look no further than the Blue Neighbourhood. And as we suffer through together, here’s hoping the third part is released sometime soon to end our agony!

Watch the first two parts here.

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