Inside SMILEZ’s Creative Ascent

The artist is having a breakout moment and is using his art to both engage with and critique the ways in which modern culture flows through internet platforms.

Over the past decade, the world of entertainment has changed in dramatic, foundational ways. As technological tools and platforms have spread across the internet, the barrier to entry for many aspiring entertainers has been lowered substantially. In years past, someone who dreamed of entertaining audiences for a living would have to first vie for the attention of professional agents or representation.

Today, however, many entertainers have been able to skip this process altogether, instead bringing their work directly to the masses through digitized platforms. All of this has led to the blurring of lines between once-defined roles, with actors, musicians, and content creators all now collapsing into a single cultural conversation. And it's one in which SMILEZ is uniquely positioned.

SMILEZ’s Online Role

SMILEZ is an actor and musician. After recently appearing on the breakout HBO series Euphoria, he was able to watch audiences across the globe react to his work in real time. He watched as clips and screenshots from his appearance began to circulate, with his music living in these same digital spaces. The fact that all of this was happening on fans’ personal feeds, where these same people were also processing their own developments, from heartbreak to identity to late-night spirals, became a source of fascination for him.

As such, he created his latest track: “LUV 2 HATE.” The song taps directly into that emotional push and pull that social media platforms can bring about, and as a result, speaks directly to this moment in time. SMILEZ describes it as a way to capture the strange tension of a relationship that can shift from obsession to resentment. For him, the internet is part of the environment around the work, but not what defines it. He is aware of speed, edits, posts, and the attention economy, but he is more interested in making songs, videos, and visual worlds that feel intentional. This demonstrates how his music fits naturally into the emotional, internet-driven spaces where people process relationships, identity, and culture.

The Pressures of Online Living

Of course, being an entertainer in the modern age can be something of a double-edged sword. While these platforms empower people to take their entertainment careers into their own hands, they also set an unfortunate expectation for them to exist online constantly. Not only can this be extremely taxing for an artist like SMILEZ, but it can also start to blur the lines between the art and the audience’s reception of it.

For example, TikTok and social platforms can amplify songs quickly, but attention can move just as fast. If a song doesn’t take off in the ways it is anticipated to, that can color people’s perception of the song far more than the actual work itself sometimes. As such, SMILEZ strives to have a detached but observant relationship with the internet. He uses the internet to stay connected to culture, music, and movies, but prefers creating music and videos over constant posting.

“LUV 2 HATE”

The entire impetus for “LUV 2 HATE” was to capture how online culture ebbs and flows, especially in stan culture surrounding modern entertainers. SMILEZ wanted to show how feelings can shift from being enamored with someone to feeling like enemies, but he did not want the song to feel overly emotional. Instead, the track aims to connect to the kind of late-night, emotionally charged internet behavior fans recognize.

Digital Mania Tell All

Digital Mania Tell All is SMILEZ’s larger, overarching project: a blend between his musical and visual stylings. It is the larger creative world around him as an artist, SMILEZ, and is ultimately a project about staying human inside digital noise. He describes it as “a collage of pop culture,” full of bright colors while reflecting the clutter, noise, vulnerability, and intimacy of online living.

Q & A

You popped up on Euphoria and people immediately started posting clips and screenshots everywhere. What’s it been like watching that happen in real time online?

It was such a cool experience being in Euphoria. It’s such a part of youth culture nowadays. I’ve had almost everybody I’ve ever met reach out to me, like one person I met on a flight five years ago type of thing. It’s kind of overwhelming. Everyone’s nicer to me.

“LUV 2 HATE” feels like the type of song people are going to post while they’re spiraling at 2 AM. Where were you mentally when you made that track?

I was really just expressing how I felt about certain relationships at that point. I think everyone’s gone through that push-and-pull type of dynamic, and how you can go from being enamored with someone to borderline enemies. I wanted to capture that vibe in a song without making it too emotional.

Be honest, what’s your relationship with the internet these days? Is it inspiring you, draining you, or both?

It’s really my way of staying in touch with what’s going on in culture, music, and movies. Other than that, I don’t care too much about staying chronically online. It’s not really draining or inspiring; it just kind of exists. I’d rather watch movies or do something creative.

Artists basically have to live online now. Do you ever feel exhausted trying to keep up with how fast everything moves?

Yeah, that part can be exhausting. I’m kind of detached from it. I like engaging with people, but I like communicating through my music and videos that I spend time on rather than posts. I wish I enjoyed it more.

Do you think it’s easier to build a real fanbase now because of TikTok, or harder because people move on so quickly?

I think it’s harder to build a fanbase on TikTok. Well, it’s harder for me at least. I think the whole 'social media makes people’s attention spans shorter' thing doesn’t really matter. When people care about something, they take the time to check it out. It’s easier not to care, but I think it’s just part of the world now.

Has social media changed the way you think about making music? Like, do songs hit differently now knowing how people consume them online?

No, it hasn’t changed the way I make music or even how I listen to it. Let’s say I find a snippet I really like, but when I listen to the full song, it gets boring or loses my interest; I won’t listen to it anymore. At the end of the day, I like listening to songs, not snippets. So if the song isn’t great, I don’t care how cool the snippet is.

If Digital Mania Tell All existed as an internet moodboard, what’s on it? What does that world look like to you?

I think it’s a collage of pop culture, visually a lot of bright colors with a mirror in the middle. I think if you are really vulnerable and intimate, you can cut through all of the clutter and noise around you and connect with people. That connection in music still exists, and it’s very important.

What’s crazier to process, actually being on Euphoria or seeing edits of yourself all over TikTok afterward?

Actually being on Euphoria. Watching the episode, it’s just a boundary-pushing, culturally important cinematic show. So to see yourself involved in that is larger than life. It’s unreal. Seeing clips online, to me, feels more normal.

What’s the most chronically online thing you’ve done recently where you had to stop and go, “Yeah, I need to get off my phone”?

I think I’ll get into researching who worked on what movie, and what actor does what. Sort of things like that is where I’ve been really nerding out lately.