From zero knowledge on creating content to now becoming an influencer
Sigma School
7th February 2024
Watch the full interview here:
In this episode of Stories of Hackers, we talked with Melvin, one of the guy who start from zero to hero. Melvin had zero knowledge on creating contents, he was jumping from char kuey teow's family business to Influencer, he turned to the field and never looked back. We hope you guys can learn some new insights from Melvin’s story and his experience, enjoy!
I was an engineer in aircraft field, I studied engineering in Nilai back in 2013. I came from a family where I need to do hawker store, my family running a Char Kuey Teow store since I was 12 so that's very local. Even I think it back right now, I don't even know how I get into the field of aircraft engineering but I remember back in the days I used to go to BLKM for 3 months then it was that very moment when we were laying on the grass, we see and hear fighter jets flying around above the sky because our camp is quite near to the Royal Malaysian Air Force base so everyday we see them flying around from our camp. Then every month of the camp, I have a visit from my parents, I told them that I wanted to fly a fighter jet, their reaction was like "OH SHIT.." then of course my mom said it's dangerous those kind of stuffs so better not fly la. Then I asked myself is there a more safer alternative way which is you know the Commercial Pilot, it's pretty safe and cool as well but it's super expensive it's like a few 100K. But still I wanted to do aircraft, just anything related to aircraft, then my mind popped an idea that if there are people flying out there then there must be people fixing it right so maybe I can fix it instead of flying you know since I'm quite a DIY Guy as well.
So I went into it and looked around Malaysia, there was only like three institute offered this course then I was like I don't want my life to be just tight about the aircraft I want it to be like you know those movie like High School Musical and more kind of school culture so I chose Nilai Institute because it was multiracial and I like that kind of environment. From local Char Kuey Teow's hawker store to Aircraft that's a big step, but what I'm doing now is more different than what I did, now I make people laugh. People kept asking me what I do as work now, I said that I get paid for doing stupid stuff on the internet and that's actually what I'm doing now, Content Creating. One of my inspiration that keep me going on is I want to give people things that I can't give myself which is laughter.
Ok so I started with like zero knowledge about this, but I'm just doing things that I actually like because I do contents that I guess people could relate to, that as well people who share so once people shared your content because they can relate to the things that you do, that is where you get more eyes and stuff like that.
Actually I feel like it's just an achievement it's just a feeling that when you're proud on something you do that's a part of Success. I think it was back in January 9th 2019 my first video, it was a year when that time Malaysia had this rule like when you want to smoke you have to stay three meters away from the table it was a big ridiculous stuff and you can see a lot of facebook posts people putting the measuring tape, they want to show that it's truly three meters away from the table. Then what came into my mind was that people are just doing pictures of it, why not I do a social experiment where I go out to people and just measure it in front of them and if it's good I'll just show the hidden camera you know like letting them know that it was just a social experiment because some people cannot take jokes so have to be careful when doing this type of video.
So basically I have this friend of mine he was very convenient it was literally the next day I called out to him like "dude you want to do this big thing with me where you be my cameraman?" and he was like "you know what just do it cmon!". So we just approach people smoking at mamak and literally just starting to pull out the measuring tape, most people were laughing and confusing like what are we doing haha, but there was this one incident like after I finished about four or five people there was this one particular small group of malay teenagers they were just sitting at the table and they were smoking so I asked my friend "do you want me to go there and measure them?" we were preparing that we might get sudden kick out from the restaurant for maybe interrupting the business, but I was like you know what I'm not doing anything wrong so I literally went up to them and start measuring and said "Abang, yang ni 3cm tau bukan 3meter ; Bro, this is 3cm you know not 3 meter." then they were like who is this random fella appeared here with measure tape and they were kind of furious when talking and there was this one guy trying to grab my measuring tape and the moment he got it, that's when I thought I'm getting fked up, then instantly he took the measuring tape and threw at me and it was recorded by my friend so he was nervous that he might get beaten up too so we run out quite far to avoid them. It was pretty fun and I'm proud of it that I did this video.
I wasn't really focusing on my craft I was just like you know chilling for awhile let's see what I can do and stuff and yeah I thought about my friends, we always have ideas to try like learning filming and editing. So filming wasn't really an issue, I don't really care about the lighting the angles and stuff like that I just shoot it and editing was the part that I was struggling because you need software, so instead I used Youtube built-in video editor and my first own edited video was really shit haha. So basically I don't really focus on anything, I do what I can do at the moment.
There was this one moment where I think if like by now if I can't get anything out of content creating, let me go back to engineering and be myself. So it was like seven months I did those videos and works without salary, and it was that moment I think that I really need to get a job because I still need to be realistic right, need to pay the bills and stuffs so yeah then that's when I started to create more Shorts Video because in the past I was doing all youtube channel videos that might be 10minutes each right then I started to realize that not a lot of people watch youtube, people are scrolling instagram, facebook, and tiktok which is quite new in back then. So I get the main point of all these things which is people don't scroll it on desktop they scroll it on phone to get comfy laying on the bed or sofa right. So that's where I know that I'll have to record the video vertically instead of horizontal and people retention always at 2 minutes and below so I created a tiktok account and make a series of relatable funny shorts below 2 minutes every single day. Then after week two of postings, TikTok Malaysia actually came to me and said they love my contents and wanted to send an exclusive invitation for me to attend event like TikTok Creators Program like that and said they will help me to grow my name on TikTok. After becoming exclusive creator for tiktok, we get priorities like tiktok boosting our contents and that's when I sorta getting known in TikTok and finally get verified blue tick for my account.
I think doing content that people could relate to. Because if you observed clearly the comment sections always filled up with comments as "HAHAHA, I remember closing the fridge door slowly to see the when the light go off." People always share the things that they've done to social medias to let people watch and have some interactions together you know. So that is why you know videos like "Top 10 things you may have done during your childhood" are always on Trending. The second key I think is collaborations with other content creators or brands. You might think that you're content creator so you can only collab with another content creator, but actually you can collab with a brand that is famous you know example if I do sports short videos on tiktok like basketball, gym then I could send out an email to famous brands like Adidas, Nike, Puma to just hoping that they would collab with me after watching my tiktok videos. So basically it's just go for everything, you won't know if you didn't do it.
I guess I'm already in the acting industry just that I'm not like those typical actors. I feel like I'm doing good right now with my own stuff because if I doing those really really acting stuff yeah I feel like I might limit my options. Being an actor you've to be fake you know, like I'm that kind of person that won't cry easily but in acting you've to cry it out example. So it's really tiring being like fake to yourself, every time you have to ask yourself to do this do that and you might even forgot why you stepped into this industry because you're already not being yourself but being an actor that brings entertainment to people, so I do enjoy my current moment where I could still do acting but the difference is that I can be real and be myself, that's the thing.
Okay, I definitely have a few. KSI, Gary Vee, King Bach, they are the few of people that I feel I can think of right now. I think there's no equivalent of them in Malaysia, I would want to be that first in Malaysia. Probably we are close-minded when it comes to content. When the foreign country they release a video they just put it out there, but in Malaysia when we post something, for the viewers will be like "eee sexual stuffs" , "eee racist" these kind of reactions, but for us it's funny it's a content. So you could say that it's not matured enough yeah, mostly Malaysian people always look at things one sided.
Yeah for those that wanted to be content creator, try your best to build up your name first, forget about the monetization, popularity and fanbase are the ones you're aiming for before monetization. Don't worry if there's no brand or content creator to collab with you, what you can do is collab with your friends first for some funny interactions video that your viewers might like.
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