In today’s era, it is easy to set up a public profile and claim to be a content creator. But what differentiates you from others is how you present your work and educate and empower the audience. In an interview with one of the few well-established content creators from Pakistan, Baekartoot, Team PG Bazaar talked about her journey, love and hate relationship with the audience and her message to all aspiring individuals.
- You’re a well-known digital creator now, but I am sure it must have taken a lot of time and effort to get recognised and appreciated. How was the journey for you?
I started this journey in mid-2020, and it has been a roller coaster ride. In the beginning, I didn’t have a well-defined niche or a strong identity for baekartoot, but time and experience has taught me so many things.
Over the span of almost three years, Baekartoot has become a symbol of ‘fearless, empowered individuals”. There were moments when I considered shutting down Baekartoot for good, but the support and love of my family pushed me to keep going.
2. Many aspiring artists lose their motivation mid-way and abandon their work. What has been your motivation to stay firm? What’s the inspiration behind your content? It wasn’t until I started creating skits on Baekartoot that I realised my love and passion for filming and acting. I do not have any background in either but I think acting has become my passion over the years. I am still learning every day, and the thrill I get while performing for my videos keeps me going. The biggest inspiration behind my content is the real-life experiences from my parents lives. I was a very observant child and lived in a desi joint family from birth till the age of 14 and that is what taught me a lot about society. My content focuses on Desi Kid or Desi household problems, and almost everybody in south Asia can relate to those real-life problems/situations. 3. With fame comes a lot of criticism. And unfair criticism as per se. How do you deal with that? Does it affect you? There was a lot of criticism in the beginning and it did affect my mental health to a fair extent, but with time I learned to mute all the unnecessary noise around me. I do not care anymore if anybody comments on how I look, dress or symbolise ‘besharam aurtein” who can do and wear whatever they want without repercussions. I try my best every day to inspire the younger girls to be an absolute queens of their own life and I get dozens of messages every day from women about how much my content and confidence empowers and inspires them.
And these positive messages made me realise that the handful of hateful sexist messages are nothing but background noise.
4. With your personal life being a lot happening lately, it must get hectic to keep up with social media. Congratulations on your engagement too. How do you balance private and public life? Any future endeavours we should be expecting? It is not hard to be honest. I only scroll Instagram at night for one hour to save any trending audios and keep up with the latest trends for future content. I open Instagram to upload my videos and respond to DMs. Content creation is a full time job at this point and I schedule my working hours for social media for example, while having my morning coffee or chai I respond to all the work queries for baekartoot and have a rundown on any upcoming work with my manager. The regular baekartoot content has no filming schedule but the paid partnerships have filming schedules, and often I have to move other commitments around it. I am working on a couple of new projects; Inshallah audience will know about it soon. 5. Lastly, anything you’d like to say to aspiring individuals? Consistency. My first paid partnership was at 10k followers for only 4000 pkr. If I wanted to I would’ve quit at that time because the money I was getting wasn’t worth the effort I put in. I learned how to film, how to use a smartphone to get the best results and most importantly, how to edit like a professional. I also worked on the quality of the scripts and content and started focusing on originality instead of lip-syncs or random trends. And instantly saw a surge in my followers and likes. Going viral once will bring you masses but will not help you tap into the right niche and retain viewers long-term. High viewer retention and engagement are what every brand seeks in a content creator/influencer.