Tessa Violet

Tessa Violet first came to notice online through vlogging under the handle Meekakitty before turning toward lighthearted pop songwriting with her opening full-length project Maybe Trapped Mostly Troubled in 2014. Momentum accumulated across select digital communities over the following years, giving the buoyant single “Crush” widespread online circulation in 2018 and lifting the subsequent album Bad Ideas onto the U.S. Heatseekers Top 20. Refining her compositional approach in tandem with personal growth, Violet began threading assertive, woman-centered perspectives into her melodic pop material, a direction that surfaced clearly on the 2023 album MY GOD!

Born Tessa Violet Williams in Chicago, Illinois, on March 20, 1990, she later identified Ashland, Oregon, as her hometown. Theater captured her interest during adolescence, prompting her to launch a vlog in 2007 while still a high-school senior. Modeling assignments took her to Hong Kong, Thailand, and Korea, yet she maintained her online presence, initially centering posts on fashion and travel before redirecting attention toward science fiction, video games, comics, and additional niche enthusiasms.

Operating at that stage as Meekakitty, she expanded her video output to include comedic sketches and musical segments, among them the early tracks “Star Trek Girl” and “Wizard Love,” the latter featuring fellow online creator Heyhihello. Close ties with other video creators accelerated her visibility, culminating in victory in a 2009 YouTube contest that rewarded the most-commented-upon entry. Ray William Johnson, a roommate of her cousin, urged his audience to support her submission, securing the $100,000 prize.

In early 2012 Meekakitty joined several YouTube collaborators, including Shawna Howson (Nanalew), for The Dial Up Tour. She and Nanalew also formed the duo the Week and recorded the album Days Of. Shortly afterward she stepped beyond the platform, appearing in Family Force 5’s 2012 video for “Cray Button” and directing the clip for Tedashii’s “Chainsaw.” The decisive shift arrived in 2014 when she abandoned the Meekakitty name, shortened her birth name to Tessa Violet, and issued Maybe Trapped Mostly Troubled, an album of idiosyncratic, EDM-tinged indie pop that reached number ten on Billboard’s Heatseekers chart. At year’s end she reunited with fellow YouTube figure Rusty Clanton, releasing the holiday EP You, Me and Christmas as People You Know; the pair promoted it via The Living Room Tour and followed with Return of the Living Room Tour in 2015.

October 2016 brought the EP Halloway, fronted by the single “Dream.” That same year she appeared in the film The Matchbreaker and maintained touring commitments on both sides of the Atlantic while preparing new material. June 2019 saw the arrival of “Crush,” the lead single from her second album Bad Ideas, which surfaced in August; additional tracks “Games” with lovelytheband and “Words Ain’t Enough” followed in September and October. The album entered the U.S. Heatseekers Top 20, and the cycle closed with the MisterWives collaboration “Bored.”

Into the early 2020s she issued the standalone single “Role Model” alongside daysormay and toured with Half Alive. Further releases—“Yes Mom,” “Breakdown,” and “You Are Not My Friend”—paved the way for her third album. Anchored by its buoyant title track, MY GOD! emerged in July 2023, pairing concise pop hooks with an overtly sexual and feminist outlook.