What Made Me Into a Content Creator?
By Zenneth Zamora
I have finally made my first blog.
There! That was not an amazing sentence but its a start. The process of being a content creator is too daunting. It cannot be just goals and visions then you are off to a good start. For me as a procrastinator, it needs more than just a vision and a goal. It needed the perfect timing, where other creators are younger than you so you start asking why am I still pondering and making excuses while others are already learning and getting better. Content creation is not a new bucket list for me. I have been wanting to do it for, I could not remember. However, I never see myself as a writer really so that was the first big hurdle for me. You are going to see a lot of grammatical errors in this first post, but I do not care for now. I will learn as I go, or not <wink>.
My thoughts were filled with ideas and information, but keeping it in my head was the safe way to do. Thanks to the content creators of this age, maybe around mid, near mid and especially the younger millennials, it kind of gave me the push I need - the thicker skin to finally do it. Hey if anyone can just talk something about what they're passionate about, I should be able to do it too.
It started with an app. The app that made me do it was Tiktok. When I heard about Tiktok, I never had the inkling to use it. As far as I have seen, I was not up to the hype young kids are using it for. You know, their unique and who knows who started what, but they are kind of making line dancing in the air using their stiff body and stiff hands and/or arms. For the sake of my partner's daughter, I am just happy that they have an outlet to be weird in the internet highway and be accepted as a 'Tiktoker' peer. Plus, hearing news that China has used it to gather information of accounts, I shrugged it for a long time.
Until one day the Covid-19 pandemic happened. All normals were challenged. Everyone went crazy - changed. My only media outlet at that time was Facebook. It was so filled with the woes of the pandemic, and it got into a point where people getting into my nerves for their selfishness and their so called freedoms and rights, while being reckless in helping the spread of the virus with their 'denialism'. It was depressing. Today as of the last days of March 2021, it has not been any better.
I know, in 39 years of living, so many new words has been added in my vocabulary that I never thought would be a thing in my lifetime. 'Frontliners' are important words, 'unprecedented' was overused, 'denialism' is a thing now and so on. So, yes. The pandemic happened, and is still continuing to be a threat as vaccines are at a limit and new variants of the virus are threatening the efforts in keeping the population healthy, and threatening rescue plans to save each countries economy from going into depression state.
As of writing, we do not know if we are already in a state of economic depression and the government is just keeping the information to avoid further chaos. Through Tiktok, what I know is that the other side of business where people invests and are making small businesses at home, have seen a good traction. We have to make money in new ways, and the pandemic is forcing us to look at the other alternatives of making money.
We do know that everyone is struggling, and the ones that are in the front lines of keeping the population healthy, salvaging the economy, and keeping the community from going into riots or anarchy, are at the end of their ropes too. Especially, when they see that still a good number of people protesting on the streets and are pushing to the limits the efforts of people who have the responsibility of keeping the community safe, healthy and supported. The only saving grace for these front liners like me, is the continued efforts from our government and the rest of the population who genuinely care in fighting against this virus and against the irresponsibility of others; and seeing that it agrees with the intended goals of keeping the vulnerable people safe and healthy. That is the main reason we continue fighting, in spite of feeling let down by the other people that continue to cause chaos in our community. It is not perfect, but compare to the hurdles thrown at the government, and the reckless behaviour by the 'deniers' and the conspiracy theorist, its better than nothing. If you have access to information of other countries' situation, and how they are handling this pandemic, you would at least stop whining for awhile and just be grateful we are not in bad shape as they are.
And so, yes. The instigator was the pandemic. The bridge was the emotional stress of dealing with illogical people who uses the guise of freedom and human rights. The inspiration was Tiktok. Before the pandemic, my world was just around Facebook - its news feed and stories from friends, connections, and family. It was easy to get tired of it. Facebook drained positive energy from fighting with misinformation about the covid-19 virus and their continued ignorance and push for their constitutional rights while ignoring the rights of the vulnerable population. The other side of the world also drained my positive energy. It got sapped when the injustice of the other countries' leaders and the continued support of their misguided citizens. I was just done with the selfishness of people. In my desperation for entertainment, I went to Tiktok, and boom, the rest was history. Tiktok's algorithm worked its magic to me.
How Tiktok works is that it has its mathematically set of algorithms to make decision on what content they will send to your page or created account, what they call as 'fyp' or 'for you page', with the contents made by Tiktok creators. As a new user, Tiktok will send contents base on the categories you chose as points of interest as you create your account. As you use it, then it will use the data on your activities of the app. However, like any algorithm expert would say, somehow the app's algorithm has a mind of its own and it usually do not behave on a simple human expectation or explanation. It is kind of scary eh? But until it does not grow legs or hands and not kick us out of earth, I think its safe to say humans still has a control over our machine or devices.
Also, what keeps Tiktok interesting to most people is the creativity of the content creators in trying to put their interesting ideas in a minute or under video length. The more creative or funny it will be, the more success it has in garnering viewers who will turn into subscribers of your page plus interact with you in your comment section. So far, when the trinity of content is satisfied, 'liked', 'comment' and 'subscribe', the algorithm works in favour with the content creator, thus pushing your content in most of the users' page.
So it happened as I swiped up and scrolled over the contents from different creators that I stumbled on the business side of Tiktok. As I subscribed to a business niched creator, familiar contents has been thrown in my way, thus the more I was hooked with Tiktok, and the more I like a post, subscribed and commented. This continued activity created my personal algorithm with Tiktok and so I am more involved in getting more information on how to invest, what side hustles that might work for me, the comedies or the character of the creators I am into and so on.
So, yeah. Basically, with my previous need to be forthcoming with my thoughts and the inspiration sent my way to try make some contents, that reflects my passion and at the same time having the opportunity to make money out of it, made me to be confident and finally write this first blog.
I am so happy that you stayed until this part of my blog. Thank you for giving me a chance to speak out my thoughts, ideas, passion or creations through my craft which I would happily shared with you in my upcoming blogs and other media mediums like my free website with site123.com, my youtube channel AvantiZenn, our podcast with my partner Brock 'Moose Jawing Podcast', and Zenn Creations.
So no, this will not be my last! I just do not know when's the next, but as a content creator, to be successful, I need to make a habit of releasing more content every week. With life, on top of everything else, its going to be another daunting task but I am ready to take my time with it and just slowly but surely, like a turtle, make it happen.
I would love to hear from you, and if you like, do leave a comment and I will response as soon and as best I can.
The next blog, I will discuss the journey I went through, and is/will still be going through, in trying to achieve my new goals and in making my contents across different social media channels.
If you want to start your own, I would love to hear it too. Together, let's see some good change for once, eh. See yah!
Zenneth Zamora lives in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. She lives with her partner, Brock, of 4 years with their pets Ginger and Ruby Nibbles. Her partner Brock has two kids, who comes to live with them every fortnight or according to their co-parenting plan. Zenneth and Brock are both trying their hands on Podcasting and has a couple of episodes done 'Moose Jawing Podcast' with anchor.fm Follow them on their other media outlets, as they continue to grow with their passion.
Check out their other social media outlets:
AvantiZenn Website Brock's Funtime Blog
AvantiZenn Facebook Brock's Funtime Facebook
AvantiZenn Youtube Brock's Funtime Youtube
