Thing I Learnt from My Conversation with a TikTok Star
A couple days ago I interviewed a TikTok star who just released a debut single. As a preparation, I had to do some researches regarding this person. So of course I watched his contents and also listened to his song. To be honest, and I’m very sorry to say this, I kinda cringed when I watched his videos. Simply put, I am (obviously) not his targeted market. But for the sake of the interview, I still watched it just so the conversation could go smoothly and I could dig deeper.
After doing some simple researches, I listed some questions I wanted to asked. The theme of the interview was haters, considering his song tells about his efforts to ignore haters and ask them to mind their own businesses. After spending some times, I finished listing the questions which I thought would be suitable with the theme and could actually be interesting for the viewers.
And so the day of the interview arrived. It was a sunny afternoon. I got ready as usual, put some makeup on, printed the question list, set the place (my colleague did actually), and made sure that this TikTok star was ready. When the clock struck four, I started the live interview. I started it with greeting the viewers while waiting for my guest star to show up. I did not wait for long time though, since my guest star had arrived.
Our interview, or at this point I prefer to call it as our conversation, started with something basic. Stuff like, how did he start his TikTok career, how did he feel being able to debut as a singer, the difficulties that he faced during recording, and of course, what was his next step. The conversation started slow, I figured that he might no be too comfortable yet so I just threw some (lame) jokes here and there. After that boring session, our topic shifted to haters.
For the record, our conversation was aired live on Instagram, the viewers could greet us and wrote some comments. As you can imagine, the comment section was a mess. Sure there were many of his fans who watched and wrote nice things, but when there are good things, bad things always find a way to lurk in. There were a couple of bad comment from his haters and they were mean. They wrote curse word with capital letter, which I guarantee you, caught my attention. But here is the interesting thing, the haters came, right when we talked about them. I thought, “Wow, they come just in the right time to prove our point.”
I have had a couple of live interviews before and I know that haters can come just the way they want and write some horrible stuffs. But what sadden me was the fact that my guest star was just a kid. He is 10 years younger than me and in this very young age, he has to deal with haters who just easily write mean and hurtful thing without ever thinking about his feelings everyday. I do understand that it is the consequences of his job, but still, to be faced with haters everyday, that will break someone. I know I will.
I asked him how he felt about haters. He answered that he tried to ignore them. In fact, he decided to not read any of those bad comments. I thought that was a good idea. Whatever you do to keep your mental health, I thought. Unfortunately, that was not a good answer for some people, since there were some people who called him snobby in the comment section afterwards.
Our topic shifted once again, to his past. I asked what grade he was in and he told me that he had dropped out of school since 3 years ago due to financial problems. He told me that he had to do low wage jobs to earned some money. He also told me that his parents were neglecting him since they were busy working. My heart broke. Here there was, a boy, who must worked hard everyday so he could survive in this cruel world. Nevertheless, he did not look ashamed to share this part of him to me and other viewers. He did not have to though, because it was his life and it was part of him.
All of his stories got me thinking about our previous topic, which was haters, and how easily they hated him just because they did not like his contents or his look. I thought, this boy has been through some hardships in life and now he still has to face haters everyday. It must be hard for him. Why can’t this boy catch a break for a minute?
To be honest, in the beginning of the interview I had some prejudices toward this TikTok star. I thought he was just a cringey boy who made cringey contents. But I was wrong, there were so much more about him. Just like everybody else.
This TikTok star then persuaded his haters to at least get to know him before writing some mean comments. I wholeheartedly agreed with his statement.
Everybody has layers that we have to peel one by one to understand them. It is so easy for us to judge and mock someone, without actually knowing what they have been through in their lives. It is so easy for our fingers to send harmful words to someone we barely know just because we only see the surface of them. Too often we are too arrogant and ignorant to each others. We don’t want to get to know them when in fact, when we do, we can at least see their point of views.
We don’t have to like everybody, that would be impossible, but that does not mean we should hate each other. Why don’t we try to see things from others’ perspective? We might never fully understand what they feel or been through, but a little understanding will eradicate hate little by little. If we still can not like them, even when we have tried to get to know them, we can just choose to stay away, instead of spreading hate. Right?
I believe that haters, well, hate because they don’t really know the person they’re hating. Maybe we all should try to throw away our bad prejudices, take time getting know each others, and listen to others’ stories. Most of the times, we will find something that might surprise us. Just like what happened to me when I decided to dig deeper about this TikTok star and listened to his stories. The more stories that we listen to, the more open our minds will be, and the less hate we keep within us.
