Entertainment
How To Be A Creator On TikTok – with Lil Cully
Everyone and their mother is scrambling to find out how to be a creator on TikTok. Since its launch in 2016, TikTok has exploded to become the hottest social media platform. Five years later, there were 800 million active users on the platform.
One of those users is a rising TikTok celebrity in his own right. Cullan Andrews, aka Lil Cully, jumped on TikTok in January 2020 to see what was up. Since then, he has blown up in his native South Africa as a TikTok comedian and has eyes on America.
If you want to learn how to be a creator on TikTok, you may want to hear his advice.
Consistently Post High-Quality Content
Just like any social media platform, posting high-quality content consistently is critical to building a follower base. Ideally, you’d want to post at least once a day every day. This continuity will catch more eyes and thus more followers.
But you can’t just post for giggles. It needs to be quality content otherwise you’re going to be dismissed. You have to develop a creative process. Whatever that may be is up to you. Lil Cully has his own creative process. Yes, there are wardrobe changes and props involved.
Lil Cully isn’t kidding around. Professionally speaking.
“I think of the script in my head. Example, POV – driving in South Africa, pick up a pamphlet on the side of the road.
“The script comes to me as I’m recording. As I’m going, ‘oof-that sounds better,’ or ‘oof-I’ll say it this way.’ I usually nail it on the first or second try.
“Because I don’t have a script, I like to record off TikTok.”
“The thing is that people who are watching a TikTok – their attention spans are short. You have to catch their attention in three seconds or they scroll. They’re gone.”
Find Your Niche
Beyond regularly creating content, you need to identify and embrace your niche. Your niche could be fashion, dance, comedy, cooking, or any number of things. People scrolling through TikTok want to find things they identify with or that entertain them.
Like many have said in the past about entertaining: give ‘em what they want.
Lil Cully found his niche fairly quickly:
“There was a lot of trial and error. I had three choices – dance, transitions, and comedy. Eventually, I just did comedy and it blew me up. Because I had the following, my other choices got more views.”
“When I started going out – after blowing up – going out was different. People started approaching me. More and more people- shopping centers, petrol stations, random places. They were always between the ages 16-24. Okay, that’s my audience.”
Embrace Who You Are
Nobody likes a phony. People gravitate towards people who are unapologetically themselves and stand out from the crowd. Take a piece of you that you like and show it off proudly. If you’re funny, tell jokes. Can you cook a world-class meal? Show the world. If you know how to dress well, get into fashion.
The more you stand out, the better.
“I do think being gay gives me an advantage on TikTok. Straight TikTok is all the trends, basic dances, eating stuff. Gay TikTok is more fun, funny people, people who use humor to cope with problems. Being gay, especially in South Africa, is niche.”
Spot the Trends and Join In
Now, to directly contradict the above advice, it’s important that you keep your ear to the ground about what’s trending. This is an opportunity to join in on the fun and expand your audience. People scrolling TikTok typically find trends on the Discover page. The more likelihood you can join that page, the better for your brand.
Lil Cully, however, has his own method:
“I do not pay attention [the Discover page] hashtags. I use my own hashtags, my own unique hashtags. When I scroll through, and I hear a sound a lot, I’ll check when it started and how many views it has, ‘oh this has potential, it’s actually a thing.’ That’s the trend I’ll do.”
“[Discover] is where all the 12-year-olds do it. That’s where the basic stuff is.”
“Trends, for me, I’ll follow if they’re on my For You page, not from Discover.”
Lil Cully essentially takes a current trend, flips it on its head, and makes it his own. That is a clever way to stay current with the masses by staying true to yourself and your brand.
Accept That You Won’t Always Have a Hit
Sometimes you’re going to produce a dud. That’s okay. Everyone in the creative field does it once in a while. As long as you accept that reality, you’ll be okay.
“As a creator and an artist, I need constructive criticism because that’s how you listen to the people.
“The more effort I put, the better it will be.”
Network and Collaborate with TikTokers
As with any industry, you need to make friends. Follow and engage with other TikTokers, develop a relationship and find a way to collaborate. Teamwork makes the dream work, amirite?
“Because I’ve made it to the South African For You page, a lot of verified creators follow me. I’ve done campaigns with them, video shoots, stuff like that. If you’re in touch with verified people then you collab with them and people see you like them.
“Like when Billie Eilish met Justin Bieber.”
When you reach a certain point, brands will start to reach out to you.
“You can’t say yes to every brand. Some of them want to give you free stuff to promote. Some of them actually want to pay you for your video. Those are who you want to go for. Because they will pay your rent.”
Final Words of Advice
Lil Cully may be new to taking content creation seriously, but he’s learned a lot of valuable lessons in the short time he’s risen to TikTok stardom.
“Have thick skin. Be authentic. Have patience.
“You will get hate. Even if it’s your first video. People will say whatever they want from behind a keyboard.”
“Always be yourself. People like the energy you give off when you’re being yourself.”
“There are thousands of us that want to be content creators. [We want] to make it so we don’t have a boss and make money doing what we love. You’re not going to be there with the millions yet. It takes time.
“Just chill, enjoy where you’re at.”
It’ll take time for you to learn how to be a creator on TikTok. Anything worth pursuing takes time. You’ll never know if you don’t try.
Be sure to check out Lil Cully on TikTok. He’s also on Instagram but he believes that his insta-game is “weak.” His words.
This summer’s movie season is now in full swing, and turnout is strong. Franchise films are facing a decline in dominance, but still hold a significant portion of the box office. In addition, original hits have proven that fresh storytelling can still break through.
Of course, challenges are there. With streaming habits, changing audience expectations, and the unpredictability of box office trends, studios are being kept on their toes. But one thing has remained constant: Pixar’s tentpole releases reliably soar past the billion-dollar mark.
Or so we thought.
Just before the pandemic, Pixar crossed a billion with Toy Story 4, one year after crushing it with Incredibles 2. Now, after a string of Disney+ releases, they’ve taken another big swing with the Toy Story spinoff Lightyear.
Then, bullish projections had Lightyear nearing a nine-figure opening weekend and cruising to $500m from there. Instead, the family-friendly tentpole opened second, failing to surpass a plummeting Jurassic World Dominion.
Why did Lightyear flop?
You probably seen the headline: Lightyear bombs. Disappointing on its face, but the ramifications go far beyond the potential for a Woody’s Roundup spinoff film.
The past couple Pixar films (Soul, Luca, Turning Red) released exclusively on Disney+. Many maligned the shafting of these exciting animated films. It’s especially upsetting for Turning Red, which could’ve easily been one of 2022’s runaway box office hits.
Lightyear is the test. A new direction for Pixar’s biggest franchise. The most means-tested Pixar film gets the theatrical boost, and if it does well, the other movies follow. For this reason, it is a big deal that Lightyear flopped. So, what happened?
If you frequent Facebook, you’ve no doubt seen the “get woke go broke” narrative. A gay kiss, which was removed from the film and added back after Disney’s March “Don’t Say Gay” controversy, has gotten the film banned in several countries. Domestic concern trolls like Ben Shapiro, enamored by Saudi Arabia’s officially-sanctioned bigotry, ratcheted up scare pieces on the film in the past week.
In today’s new heights of parental hysteria, it wouldn’t surprise me if a few thousand families stayed home due to right-wing fearmongering. Still, history doesn’t really support the notion that this would have a substantial impact on box office. Multiverse of Madness made big bank with equally-major LGBTQ+ characters. If anything, it could be said that these films’ lack of a Chinese release upsets their box office returns, but that doesn’t explain a poor opening weekend.
Still others have pointed to the shafting of Tim Allen, replaced in the role of Buzz by Chris Evans. Allen’s performance in the Toy Story movies is iconic and truly fantastic. Still, I question the notion that $30 million went missing from beleaguered Tim Allen fans.
The other explanation? Marketing. Lightyear got off on the wrong foot with an unclear premise. Evans’ ill-fated explanation tweet only made matters worse. Is this about a real Buzz Lightyear in the Toy Story universe?
One could argue that even today, Disney hasn’t totally gotten their story straight. The movie itself explains that this is the movie that the Buzz Lightyear toy comes from. An ‘80s sci-fi movie that Andy saw. In theaters. In 1995. That’s styled like a 2022 blockbuster. You can see how people got lost.
On the other hand, we might just be asking the wrong question.
Did Lightyear flop?
Of course, it’s too early to say definitively if Lightyear is a flop. That’s not what I’m arguing here.
We’re dealing with a case of Hollywood math, the same system by which Suicide Squad’s $750m profit is considered a dismal failure. Disney had the wrong idea about this movie as soon as they pushed it for a tentpole opening.
Lightyear’s $50m opening puts it in league with Coco and Cars 3, solidly ahead of true Pixar flops like The Good Dinosaur and Onward. It’s the highest opening for an animated film since Frozen II. With a COVID handicap still in play, that’s impressive.
Pixar’s mistake was to angle for a major franchise opening. They applied a post-pandemic framework to the nine-figure openings of Toy Story 4 and Finding Dory. They thought, reasonably enough, that parents would pay big money to turn out for a new, fresh installment in the beloved Toy Story franchise.
Herein lies the real problem. Lightyear is not, in any meaningful sense, a Toy Story movie. It has name recognition, which Hollywood has come to treat as a golden rule over the past two decades. But it follows a completely different character, played by a completely different actor, in a completely different world.
Like I said earlier, Tim Allen’s Buzz Lightyear is truly great. But the character is only a toy with an inflated ego, being constantly hit in the face by reality like Sideshow Bob stepping on infinite rakes. So much as wondering about “the real Buzz Lightyear” misses the point of the character.
Lightyear may marginally be a victim of conservative backlash, or poor promotion, or even COVID woes. But fundamentally, it’s a victim of its own premise.
What happens now?
Pixar’s next film, Elemental, is already slated for a theatrical release next summer. Barring a huge COVID flare-up or other societal collapse, they probably won’t go back on that. Down the line, other Pixar flicks in development may be looking at streaming releases if Disney has their way.
If anything, The Bad Guys’ recent success proves feature animation is doing fine. In a few weeks, the new Minions movie will likely confirm that. November’s Strange World will tell us if Disney’s animation department has any sort of long-term problem.
I can’t really recommend that you see Lightyear—in fairness, I haven’t seen it myself. If you want variety at the movies, the answer isn’t to support whatever Disney puts out. Live a little and see something out of your comfort zone. If Lightyear’s fate is already sealed, at least it won’t be at the expense of film as a whole.
Taylor Swift’s journey in music has been nothing but extraordinary, phenomenal, even. From a young country music singer-songwriter to a global pop culture icon, she has consistently pushed the boundaries of what it means to be a successful artist. With a $1.6 billion real-time net worth as of this writing, her fortune is built not only on her musical talent but also from her savvy business acumen and deep connection with her fans.
Taylor Swift’s Rise to Stardom
First making a name in the world of country music, Taylor Swift began her musical journey as a teenage prodigy. She signed with Big Machine Records at the age of 14, and by 2006, she had released her self-titled album.
This gained her much-needed attention, thanks to the incredible mix of catchy melodies, heartfelt lyrics, and a distinct country-pop sound. A few tracks (Tim McGraw and Teardrops on My Guitar) became instant hits and anthems for her young listeners. Swift’s amazing ability to capture the complexities of adolescence resonated loudly with fans and, with much authenticity, built her a loyal following.
The release of her 2014 album, 1989, showcased Swift’s exploration of a broader musical territory. Her transition from country to pop was met with critical and commercial success, paving the way for a larger global audience and expanding her reach beyond country music. This album cemented her position as a mainstream pop icon.
Since then, Swift has garnered recognition, including 12 Grammy Awards, while solidifying her status as a cultural icon.
The Business of Taylor Swift
Another significant component of Taylor Swift’s success comes from her keen business acumen. Early in her career, she made one of her most strategic moves: securing the ownership of her songwriting rights. Her deal with Big Machine Records resulted in the label owning the rights to her first six albums.
To gain control over her creative work, Swift rerecorded and rereleased her music, calling them Taylor’s Versions. This was met with immense commercial success while raising awareness about the challenges artists face in the music industry. This positioned her as a voice for change and a powerful advocate for fellow musicians.
The business savvy didn’t end with Taylor Swift’s music. Endorsements, investments, and partnerships also added to her wealth. Then there’s the merchandising empire, which is a huge part of Taylor Swift’s financial success. Swifties, as her fans call themselves, are fiercely loyal and would buy exclusive merch tied to Swift’s albums, tours, and personal branding.
The Financial Impact of “The Eras Tour”
And the buck doesn’t stop there. The Eras Tour has been a game-changer for Taylor Swift. It set new records and reshaped the live music industry. It became one of the highest-grossing in history, with some estimates at over a billion dollars in revenue. While it showcases her universal appeal, it also boosted economies in cities around the world.
Each of Swift’s performances became a celebration of her musical journey. They were replete with stunning stage designs, elaborate setlists, and personal storytelling, creating an immersive experience that gave the show a once-in-a-lifetime feel.
The influx of Swifties impacted host cities economically. Local businesses such as hotels, restaurants, and transportation benefited greatly from the tour.
Taylor Swift: The Savvy Businesswoman
Carefully managing her brand and image led Taylor Swift to success beyond her music. She evolved with her audience but remained true to her values. Controlling her narrative, she has crafted a relatable yet aspirational persona that resonates well with millions.
Additionally, Swift has aligned her brand with various social causes, reinforcing her image as a musician and entrepreneur who uses her success to make a positive impact. She does this by using her platform to speak out on issues such as LGBTQ+ rights, women’s empowerment, political activism, and overall encouraging change.
The Road to a Billion
Taylor Swift’s road to billionaire status is a result of her diverse income streams. We now know her wealth comes from music royalties, specifically The Eras Tour, merchandise sales, and smart investments. She further strengthened her financial portfolio by investing in real estate, tech companies, and her own production company.
When you compare her to other artists who have reached billionaire status, such as Rihanna and Jay-Z, you’ll see that her success is distinguished by her complete control over her music and brand. While others entered other industries like fashion and beauty, Swift focused on her music, tours, and merchandise, creating a self-sustaining financial empire.
The Cultural Phenomenon
There is no doubt, Taylor Swift is a cultural phenomenon, and this is thanks to her enduring connection with her fanbase, the Swifties. She has built a solid relationship with them through genuine interactions, storytelling, and a sense of community. She has shown an openness in social media that, alongside her relatable lyrics, connected her with fans on a deeper and more personal level.
Taylor Swift has indeed shaped pop culture and the entertainment industry by setting trends, challenging norms, and advocating for causes she believes in. From fashion trends to how artists navigate their careers, Swift has made her impact. Most importantly, her authenticity has set her apart.
She has displayed the ability to evolve musically while maintaining her values, earning her the loyalty of her diverse following. Her lyrics are deeply personal, touching on various subjects like love, heartbreak, and self-discovery, echoing the sentiments of her listeners on a universal level.
Final Thoughts
From a country music star to a global icon, Taylor Swift has to thank her unparalleled talent, strategic thinking, and deep connection to her fans. Her savvy business moves, groundbreaking tours, and authenticity have helped her amass a fortune while transforming her into a cultural phenomenon.
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