0
0
By: Lavanya Kathirgamanathan
In 2020, since the COVID-19 pandemic, social media has been one of the biggest platforms to gain worldwide recognition.
The lockdown created an atmosphere for people to grow and create content while staying home, which led to popular content creators and new advanced skills.
According to statistics on Zippia, only 7.2 per cent of content creators are Black or African American. By comparison 61.7 per cent of the content creators are White, while 13.3 per cent of content creators are Hispanic or Latino.
Unfortunately, this is not the only issue Black content creators have faced.
It has been noted that Black creators are underpaid compared to their White counterparts. Another issue is that White content creators generate the most views while stealing ideas from Black creators who go unnoticed.
These issues create a challenge for people of colour to gain an equal opportunity for success in the social media industry. To those who wish to make a living from content creation over social media there are inequalities that need to be addressed.
Although the percentage of Black content creators is low, this cohort of creators exists everywhere because of the quality of their work.
Many Black influencers create comforting videos that share tips and advice, bringing the audience close and allowing their ideas to inspire others.
Being a content creator is one of those careers that can make or break you.
Fortunately, the Black community has brought more comfort in their content and less controversy than many others in this career.
You can watch a series of interesting videos that cover a range of diverse topics from cooking tips, relationship advice, fashion sense advice, cleaning advice, hairstyle techniques, and fitness advice.
Anything that you can think of, the Black community has released videos about it.
Listed below are content creators with a strong social media presence who are changing the game and have started their career from rock bottom.
Britnee Ciara is a Black food content creator who chefs up incredible meals involving her daily routine.
She shares her personal experience on how she views food and the benefits of some of the ingredients to her followers.
Ciara mentions in some of her videos that sometimes it is hard for her to eat the meals she cooks, and it can be tough to create videos when her mentality is not good, but for her fan base, she does it anyways.
Sharing her personal experience while creating this content is authentic to her and her fans. It shows that she has a desire to provide her audience with realistic and passionate videos for their benefit regardless of what she is suffering from internally.
Eating disorders are common, the road to recovery is not easy and talking about it is challenging.
Ciara briefly mentions how she is slowly recovering from her personal experiences dealing with ED and provides her opinion on how it can be managed if her fans are going through a similar challenge.
According to a survey from the National Survey of American Life (NSAL,) they found that 1.5 per cent of adult Black Americans have a higher chance of suffering from bulimia.
They also found that binge eating disorder is the most common ED found in the Black community.
Ciara aims to bring positivity to her environment in food and lifestyle content.
Mo Flowers is a Black content creator who creates fitness and healthy eating content.
She promotes her business as an online coach to share her skills and experience with clients who aim for similar goals and achievements that she promotes.
Flowers has been rooting for her fitness experience for over a year and has finally reached an audience where she can turn her social media business as a full-time job.
Her main goal is to share her results to help others feel motivated and comfortable to go to the gym, to sustain a healthy lifestyle.
While a majority of the fitness influencers are White, creators like Mo Flowers embrace diversity and can inspire her diverse audience to start their fitness journey and be confident.
Jackie Aina is an influencer taking over the social media world with her engaging and entertaining content. Aina is a Nigerian-born woman that is living her glamorous life in Los Angeles creating lifestyle and beauty content.
Aina has been creating content for a while now and took her platform to TikTok, where she continues to upload various types of content that are more than just beauty.
Her cleaning videos create a space for those who want to feel motivated, calm, and relaxed.
As a well-known Black content creator, Aina took her content to the next level and made it one of a kind; with the camera, the lighting, and the way she edits her videos.
You will notice that Aina has put a spin on her content to make it her own, and nobody else’s.
Jackie Aina creates a welcoming and comforting space for all of her followers and brings empowerment to the Black community with her talent.
Aina is one of the many Black content creators who knows how to run the content creator business like a boss. Her enthusiastic personality adds a unique touch to reel in views and followers that want to stay and create a strong community.
Lavanya Kathirgamanathan is one of the Writers for this year’s publication at Black Voice. She’s a recent graduate from Toronto Metropolitan University, where she studied Journalism and will further her education in Human Resources at George Brown College. Lavanya has experience writing for multiple publications and has her own food blog on social media. Lavanya’s main goal as a writer for the Black Voice publication is to showcase Black excellence within the community, and in the city of Toronto.