My Story: Using Social Media to Create a Platform for Myself

By Saniya Ghanoui —

LM talks about the ways in which she has used social media throughout her life.

Transcript:

OBOS Today: Did you grow up, I’d say, you know, from kind of middle school on, with social media? 

LM: No, no, not at all. Like I went on YouTube when I was like eight for the very first time and then that was like my extent of like social media [laughs]. But no, I didn’t. My sisters, like my older cousins did, but, well, my sister, I only have one. But my sister, my older cousins did but I never started getting into social media until I was like 14 because that was when like all the cool kids started getting Instagram and stuff, so. 

OBOS Today: Yeah, so do you think, even 14 being pretty young, do you think having all those ideas in your head of what bodies should like that at that young age when you were starting to change made an impact, even for you today? 

LM: No, not really. I think that I was, ‘cause when I was using Instagram when I was 14, I was just looking at like nail art videos [laughs]. I wasn’t looking at like, you know, like Kendall Jenner or whatever. I didn’t really like at those people, I didn’t really care for them so not really because I was just, yeah. My for-you-page was just like, when the algorithm was good, was just filled with a bunch of nail art [laughs], like jewelry-making, so no, I don’t think so. It didn’t start to affect me until I was like 17, yeah. 17? 17 or 18. That was pretty much it. 

OBOS Today: Would, so today, you say that you are still using social media a lot? 

LM: Mm, hmm, yeah. Yeah, I am. I mean It’s because I kinda created a platform for myself on TikTok unfortunately, I hate saying that because I actually, before I started TikTok, I really didn’t like it, like posting on it really because, you know, it’s all about like you know, you get the most views if either you have really good content or you just look pretty. And I think that, a lot of TikTok celebrities today definitely are, have the titles that they do now, I mean maybe they are talented, some of them are talented but some of them got away with like pretty privilege, which is still, I think it will be a forever thing in society, but I, I just use it now because I created like a little platform for myself and I feel like there’s like pressure to be active on it. I don’t post dancing videos, don’t worry. [laughs] It’s just, you know, like promotional videos and stuff but yeah, yeah ‘cause I have no choice. I mean I do have a choice but it’s like then what do I do, just sit and stare at a well. Or I could do more productive things, honestly. I mean, I’ve been trying to but, I love making YouTube videos so that has invested, that’s very social media-oriented so yeah.