How TikTok and anime fans made Ricky Montgomery’s music career

If you also chronically scroll through TikTok, and you’re an anime fan, then you likely know of musician Ricky Montgomery. His songs have commanded enormous audiences, and clips from “Mr. Loverman” and “Line Without a Hook” have been used and reused for trends. TikTok launched many musicians to stardom. Montgomery’s career took off around the time of the COVID-19 epidemic, when anime and manga fans were exploding online. His music had been streamed over 1 billion times globally at the time this article was published. He also has two platinum albums.

His success is uniquely a product of TikTokers’ anime obsession, a fandom his music has become “fully enmeshed” with, Montgomery told Polygon. It’s a blessing and a curse that has buoyed his music career. Montgomery’s music has become the soundtrack for anime fan edits and memes of Banana Fish, Attack on Titan, Jujutsu Kaisen,And more. The same force that brought viral success to the indie-pop artist is also responsible for connecting Montgomery’s music to videos where people paint their feet to look like characters.

Warner Records Photo

Montgomery was in and out the music industry for many years before he achieved his current level of success. Montgomery released the now-popular album “Montgomery Ricky” in 2016, but left the music industry for a career in marketing. After returning to music and a canceled tour due to the pandemic, he once again considered leaving music — but the internet held on to him. It’s a group of anime enthusiasts who are obsessed with Banana Fish did.

Montgomery realised that in 2020 his music would be streamed increasingly on TikTok, Spotify and other platforms. The fans of Banana Fish — an anime series following the friendship of a photographer and a gang member that ends in tragedy — had started to create fan edits overlaid with Montgomery’s lyrics, and posted clips or lighthearted memes of the show with his song “Mr. Loverman” as the accompanying audio.

“I remember the first TikTok I ever made that got a million views was just this TikTok of me saying that I was going to watch Banana FishAnd it went… Bananas! Let’s not be silly. […]From there, I continued on. Wow, what fertile land!.”

Montgomery’s fame only grew as he engaged with fans on TikTok. The silly videos in which Montgomery reacted to videos from fans received hundreds of thousands and sometimes even millions of views. Soon after, Banana Fish fans claimed a second song, “Line Without a Hook,” and Montgomery soon had two songs going viral at once. Both “Mr. Loverman” and “Line Without a Hook” went platinum, and Montgomery was signed to Warner Records.

Now, Montgomery’s music has become inextricably linked with anime. Montgomery credits anime fans for getting him a record contract. The fans will add additional lyrics to the song. Banana FishFans of his music have been seen at concerts. Fans of his concerts have been demonstrating their support for him since August. Jujutsu Kaisen reclaimed “Mr. Loveman” to post moody edits and memes of a romantic pairing between two main characters, Gojo and Geto. Fans of Infinity is a SK8 model. in the past few weeks have used the new single “Boy Toy” to in videos using clips of that show.

“It’s kind of toxic in my head a little bit now because I’ll see other artists get some of the anime TikTok clout and I’m like, No, that’s not for you. So it’s mutually toxic now, which is, I think, a good spot for us all to be in.”

Some of the most popular edits are from Banana Fish, Infinity is SK8’s newest model.” Jujutsu KaisenEach show had a common characteristic. They all focused on the potential queer themes. Banana Fish, for example, is known for being an early influence in the “boys’ love” genre, or series that portray romantic love between men. Similarly, we don’t know if Infinity is SK8’s newest model. portrays an explicitly queer love between boys, but it’s at least a deep friendship that fans hope blossoms into romance. In the same way as in Jujutsu KaisenTwo significant characters have been re-imagined by fans into an enduring romantic couple.

Image: Bones/Aniplex

“I was actually really encouraged that the music was taking hold in like a gayer-themes version of anime, because that was one thing I didn’t really see a lot of when I was younger,” Montgomery said. “I think you’ve always seen more of a positive framing of feminine-looking men in anime, which always made me feel seen as a nonbinary person and as a girly or boy growing up. I was very excited. And I still am super excited that I get to be proximally associated with that kind of more positive framing of the gender spectrum or the sexual spectrum.”

Montgomery also describes the support of the anime fandoms as a “return to form.” He grew up watching the late-night programming block Toonami on Cartoon NetworkYou can also find out more about the following: watched shows like Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball Z.

“Anime was always part of the media landscape that I was consuming, that was allowed to be hyperviolent or hypersexual, or not puritanical,” he said. “I think that that is still true to a large degree, maybe even more so now. Especially in our age of Christofascism taking over the country and stuff.”

Montgomery is active in the promotion of his work, and creates video reactions. He reacts on videos and challenges some anime fandoms, as well as staying up-to-date with the trends surrounding his music. Polygon asked him if he could ever offload making content about “Gojo and Geto shipping memes” to his record label.

“The sentence you just said, if I said that to a label meeting, they would go, ‘Let’s move on. I don’t know what that means,’” he said. “If I were to try to offload that kind of work onto somebody else, it would not ever work.

“It’s true when people say that TikTok democratized access to a music career for artists, it’s completely true,” he said. Montgomery told Polygon that it didn’t make or break his career. Montgomery would continue to produce music no matter what happens in 2020. But it gave him an opportunity to take a different path and earn more money.

“So, um, you know, thank you, Banana FishYou can also find out more about the following: Attack on Titan.”