If you’ve watched even just one of Katie Fang’s TikToks (and given her rocket-like rise in the algorithm ranks, you probably have), you’ll be zero surprised to hear that the Katie you see on your phone is exactly the Katie sitting next to me on a super cold January day in New York City.
Happy to report: She’s just as genuine (and adorably unfiltered) in person as she is on social media. From her zero-skips playlist (she’s currently blasting OG Rihanna) to excitedly sharing about her upcoming overseas adventure (she’s leaving from our set to fl y to London with Dior Beauty before heading to Paris for her first time ever), 19-year-old Katie is quite literally the long-lost bestie you want to grab matcha and get mani-pedis with.
And in the midst of the often aesthetically curated and sometimes outright unrelatable world of BeautyTok, Katie’s down-to-earth vibe is very much appreciated. “I just speak what’s on my mind, and if I’m not feeling good one day, I’ll say that,” shares Katie of her social media mindset. “It’s normal to have period cramps and off days and to not be productive all the time.” Chatting about her stressful load of homework assignments and cravings for pho while she does her skincare routine, Katie is, well, any of us. And that authenticity is exactly why she’s racked up 6.1 million TikTok followers…and counting.
Viral by accident
This sort of success is fairly astonishing for someone who, just two years ago, didn’t even have the term “content creator” on her radar. In 2023, Katie was just a normal high schooler living in Vancouver, Canada: She was applying to colleges to study journalism, ice skating with her girls on the weekend and working a part-time hosting gig at Cactus Club Cafe, a local chain restaurant.
All that changed one rainy winter evening when Katie got called in for a last-minute shift at work. “I was so mad. It was so cold, and I was already cuddled up in bed,” she recalls of the night that launched her into the social media stratosphere. On a whim, a teary-eyed Katie filmed herself getting ready for her shift and uploaded it to TikTok with the caption “POV: I got called into work.” By the time she clocked out a few hours later, her GRWM had millions of views.
“Getting comments from Asian girls that they feel seen because of my videos has helped me become more confident in my own skin.” Katie’s initial reaction to internet fame? Terrified. “I wasn’t used to getting comments and having so many people talking about me. I literally put my phone down and didn’t look at it for a week because I was so scared,” she admits.
But it wasn’t long before Katie geared herself up to post another TikTok (this time a makeup tutorial, followed by a few more chatty GRWMs), and her follower count kept skyrocketing.
Fast-forward to today, and Katie’s arguably one of the most iconic beauty gurus on your FYP. And girls aren’t the only ones noticing: Katie has had collabs with huge brands like Glow Recipe and Cetaphil, sat front row at New York Fashion Week and hung at Coachella. She’s even had her own Times Square billboard (!). It’s safe to say that Katie is the overnight TikTok success story every aspiring influencer dreams about…but her personal beauty journey wasn’t so simple.
Glowing up
Born in Taiwan, Katie spent her childhood moving between there and Hong Kong until the fifth grade, when the Fangs made the leap across the ocean and finally settled down in Langley, British Columbia, just outside Vancouver. Moving to a whole new continent came with its fair share of culture shock, which multiplied when Katie’s family relocated again (this time to Vancouver proper), and she had to switch schools before junior year. “It was so hard to make friends, because everyone already had their own groups,” she remembers. “And I was super insecure about being Asian. I compared myself to the girls in my class—I wanted to look more like them.”
In a way, filming beauty tutorials was an outlet for her self doubt. “When I first started posting regularly on TikTok, I would do my makeup to try and feel more confident,” Katie admits. And while a blowout and brow gel can certainly give a girl a boost, the thing that truly helped Katie’s self-esteem was interacting with other POC creators. “Seeing people on my feed who look like me and getting comments from Asian girls that they feel seen because of my videos has helped me become more confident in my own skin,” she shares.
These days, Katie views her beauty routine as more of a self-care practice than a confidence prereq. “It’s really therapeutic to me. My goal when I do my makeup now is to still feel like myself, even after it’s done. That’s why I’m so into the clean girl look—not too much, lots of skincare.”
Knowing that she influences a younger audience, Katie’s also big on staying away from products she views as potentially harmful. “I don’t use retinol. And I don’t want any of my followers thinking that you need it anytime before you’re, like, 20, because you don’t,” she says. (And, hello, she’s right.)
Empire state of mind
Now that Katie has found her place in the social media world, she’s also putting down roots IRL with her first big girl apartment in the heart of New York City. “I visited in 11th grade with my mom, and it was the most memorable trip I have ever been on. It sounds corny, but I just had this feeling that this was where I belonged,” she shares. Making a solo move to one of the biggest cities in the world might seem intimidating to most teens, but Katie is used to new beginnings—and having a gorgeous living space doesn’t hurt, either. With panoramic views of the Empire State Building and the Hudson River (check out her apartment tour on YouTube), Katie’s living the city girl dream.
“Being alone is scary, but it’s also freeing in a way. Like, I can stay in bed for as long as I want, and I can eat my dinner on the couch,” she says with a laugh. But living solo also comes with its fair share of drawbacks: Katie still struggles with laundry (“I literally didn’t know where the detergent went at first”), dishes (“cleaning up after you cook is just next level”) and being a six-hour flight away from her mom and sisters (“I sometimes sit there after I end a FaceTime with them and realize that I’m really alone”).
The loneliness never lasts long, though, thanks to her cat Oreo, her new city crew and the vibrant urban energy. “New York is so lively. People are always out and about. That makes it easier to handle,” she says. And when she’s not filming, Katie has plenty to keep her busy: She’s enrolled in online college (she’s majoring in business), posting daily vids on TikTok and trying to grow her YouTube channel (she’d love to hit 1 million subscribers by the end of this year).
Katie’s vision board also includes more trips with her mom (she’s excited to see Thailand, Japan and St. Barts), plus exploring the possibility of launching her own biz: “Everyone wants me to start a skincare or makeup line, but I was actually thinking jewelry,” Katie shares, though she’s cautious to reveal much more. Above all? Katie hopes to continue using her GRWM routine as a way to feel her best, whether she’s rocking full glam or a simple glass skin look: “I love that in New York, you can leave the house with no makeup on, and no one would look at you twice. It’s just all about the confidence you project. That kind of attitude is such a big part of beauty. It’s not all about the makeup.”
ICYMI: This story originally ran in our April/May 2025 issue.
Read the print mag for *free* today when you click HERE.
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Styled by Whitney Brielle.
Hair and makeup by Sophia Hutch.
Photographed by Belden Carlson.
Formatted for digital by Hailey Lynne.
