Sophomore Trevor Vaughan props up his phone, takes a quick breath and hits record. Music swells through his room as he begins to sing — not for a crowd, but for a camera.  Within days, thousands of listeners will hear Vaughan’s voice online, and millions more might scroll past the same clip that made him go viral last summer.

Vaughan, who goes by the artist name Trevor V, went viral last summer after a video of him singing ‘The Hills’ by The Weeknd amassed more than 9.5 million views on Instagram. Vaughan produces music covers and original music content online, which reaches tens of thousands to millions of people.

Vaughan said this recent attention meant a lot to him.

“Now I’m kind of used to it, (but) I wish I wasn’t, because I’m kind of taking it for granted now,” Vaughan said. “At first it started at a million, and it got a million every day, and then it slowed down. But when I first got that million, I was going crazy.”

Vaughan said the online recognition connected him to people across the school.

“A lot of people at school know me for my music … I usually think they don’t actually like me. They’re just doing it because I’m a name that people know,” Vaughan said. “But knowing that a lot of random people saw my video was kind of crazy and exciting to me because they don’t know who I am. They just stumbled upon my music, and now they know who I am, so I can show them what I’m worth, show them what I like and who I am.”

Additionally, Vaughan said his recent online fame has also led to recognition from professional music artists.

“A little later, Halsey liked that post, and that was even crazier for me because I like her music, and that’s an actual professional artist who makes a living off of it,” Vaughan said. “She liked my post and saw it. That was just crazy.”

While the fame brings support, it also comes with criticism, which Vaughan said he tries to tune out.

“A lot of the comments on Instagram are 40% negative, 40% positive and 20% just weird,” Vaughan said. “The negative ones I kind of just ignore. I do look at them sometimes and get a little disappointed, and think I’m not good enough, that I should be better, or that I need to work harder. But a lot of the time, I ignore (them). Especially when I look at the comments that are positive … I completely forget about the negative, because I love music so much that I don’t really care about what people think.”

This love for music has been a constant part of Vaughan’s life for as long as he can remember.

“I’ve always loved music and singing,” Vaughan said. “The first songs I remember hearing and loving were ‘Whatcha Say’ by Jason Derulo and ‘What’s My Name?’ by Rihanna.”

Vaughan said he’s drawn to music because it comes naturally and brings him happiness.

“I like how my body can kind of take over, and I can kind of just jam to it,” Vaughan said. “It gives me so much joy. That’s the main reason, and the only reason I love music. It makes me happy.”

Vaughan said he credits pop artist Olivia Rodrigo for inspiring him to expand his love for music by introducing him to the process of songwriting in sixth grade.

“I watched her YouTube videos. How she made songs — her inspiration. So then I started writing music. It started out more like ideas, but I then fleshed them out into real songs and started learning how to produce music.”

But Vaughan said what impressed him most was the intricate and deliberate nature of songwriting.

“What really made me inspired by Olivia Rodrigo was how she wrote the lyrics, the rhyming she did, the metaphors, stuff like that,” Vaughan said. “I just thought it was really interesting how she made each individual part of the music. Not just the song as a whole, but how each little detail made the song so magical.”

Vaughan said he also draws inspiration from other other music while infusing his own style.

“When I make music, it’s mostly about what I think of the song, the feeling of the song and the groove of the song,” Vaughan said. “A lot of the time, I’ll listen to a song, and then I’ll love it so much that I’ll try to make a song with a similar feel to it. So I kind of take inspiration from other people’s music and songs I like, and then try to make that my own.”

Though his first early songs were rough, Vaughan said enjoying the process mattered most.

“When I first started making music, I made three songs in a month and put them out,” Vaughan said. “They were horrible, but I’m still proud of them, because I loved them and had fun with them. And so if you love what you do, it doesn’t really matter what people think of it, or how many views it gets, or whatever.”

Vaughan said the key to success depends on passion, practice and determination.

“I would say it’s mainly just loving it enough to where you just want to do it 24/7,” Vaughan said. “Because the more you play your instrument, or whatever you’re trying to do, you’re going to get better at it no matter what if you keep doing it. Just do it all the time, and then don’t be scared to learn new things.”

Even so, Vaughan said encouragement from friends and family has helped him continue pursuing his passion.

“It just motivates me to make something that they’ll like — make something that I like too,” Vaughan said. “I want other people to be proud, or think I’m at least good enough to start doing it. I don’t want people to look at me and then think I’m a joke, which I tell myself people do for some reason. For some reason, whenever people say they like my music or talk about my music, I always tell myself that they are mocking me or don’t like my music when some of them are genuine.”

Recently Vaughan performed live for the first time.

“I did my first performance, a month or so ago,” Vaughan said. “And I love performing. I love giving people a good show. I love showing people what I love … I just want to give them my passion for music.”

Though he dreams of a professional music career, Vaughan said he tries to stay realistic.

“In the future, I wish to, obviously, make a living off of it,” Vaughan said. “I want to perform my songs more and I want to have a larger fan base. But realistically, it’ll probably be more like a hobby, because music’s not easy to make money off of, especially if you’re not very, very good … so I’ll have to work really hard, or I can just accept that I won’t do anything with it.”

Nevertheless, Vaughan said he continues to stay focused on improving and creating music more consistently.

“I’ve been having more fun with music and practicing my instruments, getting better,” Vaughan said. “Eventually, I want to be able to make songs quickly and release them so my fans can actually have a consistent stream of new music.”

And sophomore Rayhan Brinck, a friend of Vaughan’s, said what sets Vaughan apart is his relentless passion for music.

“He has a lot of perseverance in him,” Brinck said. “He’s one of the few people I know who has a creative hobby and just keeps working and working and working. He’s been working on it for years — before I even knew him … he just hasn’t given up on it, no matter how bad he thinks it is, or other people think it is. He spends all his time doing music, and that’s really admirable. I don’t know anyone else like that.”

In the end, Vaughan’s love for music — whether it be through practicing, producing or performing — drives everything he does.

“I just love making music so much that I just kind of do it whenever I can,” Vaughan said. “When I get home, I’m waiting to make music, I’m just anticipating that. That’s what I want to do any time of the day in my free time. I think about music all the time.”