{"id":423783,"date":"2026-05-12T11:14:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T11:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/423783\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T11:14:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T11:14:10","slug":"celebrity-treasure-islands-louis-davis-on-tiktok-fame-and-changing-stereotypes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/423783\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrity Treasure Island\u2019s Louis Davis on TikTok fame and changing stereotypes"},"content":{"rendered":"

And now he\u2019s finding a new audience – on a slightly bigger screen – on Celebrity Treasure Island<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\"WeddingWedding of Louis and Ashleigh Davis outside KFC in Whangarei. Photo \/ via Facebook<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all meant a lot of attention for a long time. And while grateful, the 32-year-old says when he looks at the bigger picture, all the follows, comments and now TV castings, are little more than background noise in his life.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a quote he likes that sums up his approach to his reality: <\/p>\n

If you live for the cheers, you\u2019ll die for the boos. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to know who can give you mana,\u201d Davis explains. \u201cI don\u2019t give my mana to random people on the other side of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

So why is he doing it? What\u2019s the point in being a content creator if you don\u2019t care about the opinions of your audience? <\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s easy,\u201d he says, \u201cI\u2019m trying to portray M\u0101ori men as the way that my ancestors were.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the first settlers arrived, and they met M\u0101ori, they described in their journals how it was considered chiefly to be with children, to be playful and cheeky with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Davis says that for people across the world, he might be the only impression they ever get of M\u0101ori, and he\u2019s hellbent on making it a good one. <\/p>\n

\u201cI want there to be a global story bigger than Once Were Warriors about men that look like me. I want the biggest story ever told about M\u0101ori men to be one of goodness, one of love, and my [social media video] might be the only thing they see.\u201c<\/p>\n

\"TikTokTikTok star Louis Davis is making his mark on the world. Photo \/ Jason Dorday<\/p>\n

That means he never uses \u201ccheap stereotypes about my people\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never portray us as dumb or drunk. Hopefully, I can play a part in creating a tsunami wave that wipes away any stereotype that came before me.\u201d <\/p>\n

Davis says one of the biggest compliments he\u2019s received was being labelled as \u201cboring\u201d online. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m quite proud of that, because I\u2019ve made a name for myself in a way that is true to who I am, and no one has to be harmed in my success.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says it\u2019s concerning that some of the loudest voices online are also promoting harmful rhetoric.<\/p>\n

Young boys, he explains are increasingly told success requires an \u201calpha\u201d persona built on harming and putting others down – but he sees himself as proof it doesn\u2019t have to be that way. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you think about people like the Andrew Tates and the most toxic voices on the internet, many, many people have to be harmed for them to ascend to the top. <\/p>\n

\u201cI hope that I\u2019m an example that you can be \u2018boring\u2019 and your dreams can work out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Davis credits his wife for much of that success, rejecting the idea that men should freely chase ambition while women stay home to raise children.<\/p>\n

\" Louis Davis and Frank Bunce in Celebrity Treasure Island episode 6.<\/p>\n

Before agreeing to Celebrity Treasure Island – filmed in the Far North, where he grew up and now lives – he made sure he had her blessing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel sad being away from my kids, who are 5, 3 and 1, and my wife. I try to take them with me whenever possible. But I have an amazing wife, she facilitates all of my dreams and says, \u2018Ok, how can we make that happen?\u2019 It\u2019s only possible because of her,\u201d he explains. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is my big dream as someone from the north – I never thought I\u2019d be able to come back to my whenua.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Davis believes if his kids grow up watching their parents have \u201cdelusional aspirations\u201d, they\u2019ll think that kind of thinking is normal – in the very best way. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ll have the courage to be a pianist or a dancer – they\u2019ll think anything is possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\u201cThis\u201cThis is my big dream as someone from the north – I never thought I\u2019d be able to come back to my whenua.\u201d Photo \/ Jason Dorday<\/p>\n

He would know. He says his own courage came from his parents, Sharon and Lou, who work for the charity Te Kai a te Rangatira, which helps provide opportunity and leadership avenues for M\u0101ori. Davis is hoping to win the CTI prize money in its name. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was 8, I figured out how to edit Jackie Chan fighting dragons on my mum\u2019s computer. I showed my parents, and my mum said, \u2018You\u2019re amazing, son. You are so talented. Your ideas are amazing\u2019.\u201d <\/p>\n

His dad, he says, encouraged him to try hard, but was instrumental in making sure he knew that if he mucked up, it wasn\u2019t the end. There was no problem that couldn\u2019t be solved.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf kids have those two things – the courage to be aspirational and the belief that nothing is unfixable – the world can\u2019t do shit to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Davis says he wishes all kids in the Far North could be given that level of belief in what\u2019s possible. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou look around, there\u2019s nothing here. It\u2019s really hard to be aspirational and to think that there is more to your life than just getting a job, maybe paying down the mortgage,\u201d he says of his hometown. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not saying that\u2019s not a life, but if you\u2019re a creative kid who wants more or something different, we don\u2019t have many examples here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"LouisLouis Davis is ready to take on the shores of CTI. Photo \/ TVNZ, Matt Klitscher<\/p>\n

Davis is quick to deflect any ideas that he could be that role model. Instead, he suggests, try and focus on what you can offer the people around you.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no amount of money or status or things you can acquire that can replace the feeling of being a part of a village.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think our most meaningful pursuit we can make as rangatahi M\u0101ori is to answer the very simple questions: What kind of son are you? What kind of partner are you? What kind of father are you? What kind of neighbour are you?\u201d <\/p>\n

Celebrity Treasure Island is streaming now on TVNZ 2 and TVNZ+<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"And now he\u2019s finding a new audience – on a slightly bigger screen – on Celebrity Treasure Island.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423784,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[95,48212,430,3623,14229,56447,156,39275,1888,3096,22050,111,139,69,90,14727,254,217405,19554,194452,613,58228,5143,15315,2201,1869,1316,1842,102],"class_list":["post-423783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-and","tag-ashleigh","tag-celebrities","tag-celebrity","tag-changing","tag-davis","tag-entertainment","tag-fame","tag-first","tag-islands","tag-louis","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-outside","tag-photos","tag-stereotypes","tag-taken","tag-tasted","tag-tiktok","tag-treasure","tag-viral","tag-wedding","tag-went","tag-whangrei","tag-when","tag-wife","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}