21-Year-Old TikTok Star Griffin Johnson Talks Mental Health And 'Shaping The Culture'

Griffin Johnson, a 21-year-old social media creator and influencer with nearly 10 million TikTok followers, recently joined The Raz Report where he discussed the Sway House, mental health and his approach to investing.

The Raz Report series, hosted by Benzinga Founder and CEO Jason Raznick, is at the intersection of markets, entrepreneurship and overcoming the odds to be successful.

Sway House: The Sway House is a Los Angeles TikTok collaboration house that was home to Johnson and other TikTok stars, including Bryce Hall, Jaden Hossler and Josh Richards. Johnson and the others started Sway LA, a group of content creators who lived together at the Sway House, but Johnson has since split off to do his own thing.

"Basically we had to split up because we couldn't get a house big enough," Johnson said. "Second off, because we all had different goals on where we wanted our careers to go, so we kind of split off based on where we're trying to go and what made sense."

Watch the full interview in the video below:

Social Media And Mental Health: Johnson addressed the mental toll that social media can take on content creators. He admitted to not being the best version of himself at times in the past but said the backlash he faced from critics was extremely difficult to navigate.

"I felt like I was getting criminalized for the whole thing, and at the same time there was so much going on behind the scenes and no one knew about it. But I couldn’t speak up. So it was almost like a bad dream where you can't talk," he said.

"That was the lowest point I had ever been in my life mentally, for sure."

Investing Strategy: Johnson said that from a business perspective, he's attempting to leverage the influence that the Sway group has built to create and build products to change the world. Instead of signing promotional deals with well-known brands, Johnson prefers to create and build his own products and brands or invest in companies founded by people he believes will succeed in the long term.

"Business is changing, and our culture in Sway has shown that. People invest in the things we use. So we might as well, if we're already shaping the culture, we might as well build it or start it off and invest in it first," Johnson said.