Let’s talk numbers. According to the World Population Review 2025, Canada’s population is estimated at 40.7 million, Australia stands at 26.5 million and Switzerland at 8.8 million.

Across her Instagram, TikTok and YouTube accounts, Filipino dancing wunderkind Niana Guerrero has 77 million followers. Which means if you combined the population of all of the aforementioned countries, you’d still be a million short. That, in itself, is no small feat. Commanding the attention of 77 million netizens is something that any politician or celeb fantasises about. It’s an even greater feat when you consider that Guerrero is only 19 this year. She’s collaborated with BLACKPINK’s Lisa on a dance video, launched her own trending choreography all over the interwebs, and she counts two BTS members as part of her multitude of followers.

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Hard to imagine, then, that Guerrero admits she never thought the influence she would hold one day. “I was really shy, and even now, I still have those moments where I will quietly stay in my corner,” she admits. Comfortable in her own space that’s lit with a flood of gradient-coloured lights, Guerrero takes the interview over a Zoom call, dressed in lowkey separates and a beanie. The way she articulates speaks volumes of the attitude she delivers when she’s dancing. Yet off the dance floor, Guerrero lets on that she still has an introverted side. Laughing, she tells us how she is “really the student in the kindergarten class who is the wallflower, saying nothing at all.”

That was until dance found her.

Guerrero’s earliest memory of moving to the beat came from time spent with her family. “It really just started with doing silly dances in the living room, because my parents would play different kinds of music,” she recounts. “They’d put on Michael Jackson, and I would try to copy his dance moves I saw on TV. I feel like that’s where the passion for dance was ignited in me. My brother was also key in getting me into the whole ‘creating dance content’ scene. He started creating content at a young age too, and his goal wasn’t even to go viral or anything. He really just did it for fun at his end. One day, I remember him dancing in the living room and I was copying him. He had the idea to include me in one of his videos, and that’s where it started. People just loved the idea of this brother-sister duo dancing, and it took off.”

Guerrero was three years old then, and 16 years later, she’s still keeping time on her toes flawlessly.

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“I feel most alive when I am dancing,” Guerrero enthuses. “I think dancing is the one time I fully get to live in the moment. Everything else just fades away for me, so whether I’m doing choreo or just freestyling in my room, I love that I get to enjoy this feeling of being completely present and open whenever I move.”

She continues with how dancing has given her freedom, “Nothing else matters, because it’s just me, the music and my movements.”

It sounds so simple, and perhaps it is. A quick browse of Guerrero’s TikTok page brings up a multitude of dance videos, where the young dance star casually and expressively nails complex routines with the ease and confidence of a seasoned dancer much older than she is. She switches easily from hip-hop to street jazz and locking, and peppered in between her dance videos are vlogs, social media challenges with her siblings and friends to give her fans an added insight into her life. If we zoom out a little, it’s hard to miss the headlines today talking about the ills of social media on young minds. Australia has enacted a ban for children under 16 from accessing social media, and Singapore is contemplating similar legislation. On Netflix, one of the top-watched shows early this year was Adolescence, which dives into how social media can have a negative impact on young minds. So what does Guerrero, who’s pretty much grown up under the watchful gaze of millions, think about all this?

“Personally, social media—like many other things—has both good and bad sides,” she pauses. “I’m always grateful for the opportunities that have been given to me and all the connections that I’ve made, but it can also be very overwhelming. “I think that’s why I make it a point to take breaks and surround myself with people I can trust and who love me. It’s this support network that reminds me that being online isn’t everything.”

Guerrero explains that she doesn’t post everything on her channels either, and over the years, she’s learnt to draw a line with what she’s willing to put out for public consumption. For her, family time is uncompromisingly personal, and if it means putting the camera down to be fully in the present, that’s okay with her. “My family is the one thing that’s helped me constantly. They keep me grounded, and they’re always supportive of me,” Guerrero shares. “A common misconception I hear is that ‘Oh, she’s Niana, so she can do whatever she likes’, but that’s not true. My parents are there to set boundaries and to keep me rooted. So they will tell me ‘No, you’re not going out today’. In a lot of ways, my life is like a lot of other girls.”

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It’s hard to imagine Guerrero as “just like other girls”. Other girls don’t dance with KATSEYE, or exchange DMs with J-Hope and Sabrina Carpenter. Yet over the course of our hour together, there is something incredibly innocent and—dare I say—regular about Guerrero.

When asked what she wants to achieve before she turns 20, Guerrero replies with a grin that she’d like to get a car, and to travel more—two things that most peers her age would dream of too. When we talk about the singing-dancing pop princess Tate McRae, she gushes about loving McRae’s work, just like any girl in high school would. But when we chat about her career as a social media celebrity, she shyly deflects remarks about her popularity. It’s almost as if the mythical power of “celebrity” still has a pull on her, as it does with the millions of teen girls around the world who get starry-eyed looking at their pop idols. And if you remove her millions of followers, there’s something incredibly unassuming about Guerrero. Anyone who’s been a 19-year-old will probably know and share the same teen girl crazes and troubles that she has gone through. This relatability is perhaps the reason for her popularity.

“A lot of people think that since I am ‘Niana Guerrero’, I don’t go through the same emotions or problems,” the dancer protests. “That’s not true. I’m really just a normal girl. My family is like most other families. My siblings and I bicker, as all normal siblings do. You’d think it’s the other way, but I’m just a girl who happens to love to dance.”

Editor-In-Chief: Kenneth Goh
Stylist: Gracia Phang
Photographer: BJ Pascual
Cover look: Swarovski
Hair: Jay Aquino
Makeup: Anthea Bueno
Producer: Roxanne Matias
Photographer’s assistants: Ruel Estrellis, Richard Detita, John Paul Dela Cruz, Abel Santos, Edmil Santos
Stylist’s assistants: Ariel Floresca, Raquel Acosta