(Role)Models - Traci Hines
Traci Hines is a Singer/Songwriter, Voice Actor and Designer, most known for her music videos. Her passion for fairytales and costuming defines her productions on YouTube, where she posts to an audience of over 450K subscribers. (Her most popular music videos have reached 36 and 27 million views with her overall channel view count at 193 million).
She began releasing music and videos independently, but now also gets to produce video and social media content for brands and IP that she loves. Recent campaigns include Disney, Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, Disney+, Studio Ghibli, RockLove Jewelry, Google Play, Warner Bros. Fantastic Beasts, Etsy, HGTV and Square Enix for Kingdom Hearts III.
Traci has been voice acting and recording music professionally since she was 10 years old. Her voice can be heard in television, radio, games, apps, and her favorite: Disney Parks, including Disneyland, Disney’s California Adventure, Tokyo Disneyland, and Tokyo Disney Sea. Her most recent song in Disney Parks was an independently directed and produced cover, which played in Disneyland Resort for the Halloween 2019 season. Notable singing and speaking Voiceover credits include Skechers, Disney Tsum Tsum, Zuru: My Magical Mermaid & Seahorse, Tap Tap Revenge 4 (Phineas and Ferb), Minute to Win It, the game, and Shatoetry for William Shatner.
Traci herself has also become synonymous with her "Hipster Mermaid" persona after accidentally going viral cosplaying as the meme in its heyday. This gave birth to “Life Lessons From A Hipster Mermaid,” a comedy webseries Traci co-produced on her YouTube channel. A mermaid inspired clothing line came soon after, where Traci expressed her personal style designing mermaid seashell crop tops and more under the name Adorkable Apparel™ . She’s a little mermaid at 5’2, but Traci has also been modeling for retail brands since 2008, including Hot Topic, RockLove Jewelry x Disney’s Frozen, Lime Crime Makeup and Vans. Traci’s work has been internationally published, some of which can be found in: The Mermaid Handbook, The “Disneybound” Book, FAE Magazine, (cover) Cosplay Culture Magazine, (cover), Your Cloud Parade (Viral Little Mermaid Wedding Photoshoot), LA Weekly, and Faerie Magazine.
She is passionate about finding ways to help inspire and encourage others, and she is currently volunteering her time working both independently and alongside nonprofits providing entertainment and music for children who are battling terminal illness. She was once a child with a terminal illness herself, and she also grew up watching her parents battle serious illness as well. (She and her family are healed and healthy now). Traci’s faith remains an important part of her life, and she has a heart to use her passions to help others who have struggled in similar ways.
Despite her relentless ambition to follow her dreams in music, Traci has struggled with vocal pain, and eventually vocal loss throughout her life. Her comparison to her favorite mermaid by her audience and peers felt a little too close to home as she found herself living half her life on vocal rest in order to do what she loved most. It was a mystery why she would suddenly lose her voice, until she was finally diagnosed with a lifelong vocal polyp on her vocal chords in 2017.
Shortly after her diagnosis, she made the difficult decision to have vocal fold surgery for the chance to be able to sing again, and it was successful. She is completely recovered now, and has a healthy voice for the first time in her entire life. She’s passionate about a pursuit of health, and sharing her story. Despite the many roadblocks she’s faced while working towards her goals, (vocal polyp aside, she also has a permanent hearing loss in her right ear, and fights chronic pain from Degenerative Disc Disease with regular fitness training) she hopes to inspire others to never let their struggles define them, or keep them from pursuing their passions and purpose.
Her goals for the future include releasing her first (visual) original album, producing a documentary, and continuing to do creative work for the brands and companies that align with her mission to empower and inspire kids of all ages to accomplish their dreams.
