We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Maytar Shapira. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Maytar below.

Hi Maytar, thanks for joining us today. Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?

Meetoosh was a childhood nickname that my close family and friends would call me growing up. Ironically I used to hate this nickname and eventually tried asking people to stop calling me by that name. My friends at school would laugh when they heard what my parents would call me. Even one of my teachers had asked me about this nickname after a parent teacher conference, and I was mortified for some weird reason. By the time I was 14, I had a family friend named Shlomi who had continuously supported me and my goals as an artist. I trusted his instinct as I always saw him as a creative person as he had all these crazy tattoos and would show me cool artists. He suggested that I change my artist name from my original name, “Shapira Art” to “Meetoosh” – the name he knows and loves. He inspired me to look into this identity that I was so fortunate to have from those who loved me, and allowed this name to become who I am beyond just my close circle. I now proudly represent the name “Meetoosh” and openly encourage people to use it. It’s an ironic little story that taught me a lot about new perspectives. Shlomi helped Meetoosh come to life and I will always owe him for that.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I was born and raised in Brooklyn in a very Jewish community. I was an extremely courageous child. I would sell $25 commission drawings to kids in my middle school class. I even had a YouTube channel where I would post makeup tutorials and do all sorts of creative videos like that. Although I was brutally bullied for this, I always knew I wanted to be some sort of artist, whether it was a make-up artist, a stylist, a photographer, I just knew I wanted to do something in the creative industry. 2015 was the year where I really started to become one with my art. I started drawing in a specific black-and-white style that started to gain a lot of attention. I began to do murals, sell merchandise, and build my brand in the 8th grade. About seven years later, after experimenting with allsorts of styles of art, I’ve ironically started to tap back into my original black-and-white style with a new approach that inevitably became what Meetoosh is now known for.

In light of recent events, I’ve started to gear my art towards my religion and my culture as it only feels right. I owe a lot of who I am to the Jewish-Israeli community that raised me, and dedicating my art to that culture has helped heal me in ways I didn’t know it could. This year specifically, I started thinking about what I wanted the name “Meetoosh” to carry. I realise that who, and all that I am routes from my religion and the country that my parents are from. It is only right that I dedicate my career and my goals, to the same people that helped carve the road of them for me. My incredible parents have taught me the importance of our land, and being proud of where I’m from, despite what the world might think of it. I’ve built my own community of Meetoosh supporters through this movement, and it has been one of the most magical feelings I’ve ever felt. I am extremely grateful for this entire process and I am continuously excited to see what the future holds for Meetoosh.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I believe it’s important to not only sell your brand through social media, but as an artist, it is important to sell yourself as an individual. This allows your audience to personally bond to you, as not only a brand identity but as a human that they know and love. Building a community through social media allows you to have that fan base where you can share ideas, new projects, new products and have that continuous support towards them. My advice to anyone starting to build their social media presence is to be consistent. Consistency is key, both analytically and morally as having self discipline and pushing yourself to hit that target post every single day can allow you to not only grow your physical follower numbers, but also grow mentally as a business owner. My second piece of advice would be to think outside the box and try to imagine what will make your audience stop on the post and think twice. Social media is a fast pace, scroll-through environment, and any way that you can get someone to slow down and absorb what you are putting out is successful. Be authentic to yourself in all ways as I have, and evidently the belonging community will follow.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

I believe that being authentically myself and not falling for short trends allowed me to truly experiment with who I am as an artist. People look for authenticity in a world that can be so fake, and when you come across a person that feels real, it can encourage people to enable you that reputation. I take pride in my kindness and my ability to be there for others, and that’s exactly the type of reputation that I want to have as a brand owner, specifically for my Jewish community in this time. We all need that feeling of unity, and creating a safe space for people to fully bathe in – and that is something I take a lot of pride in. Kindness can take you a really long way, and I will always stand by that.

Contact Info:

• Website: Meetoosh.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/meetoosh
• Facebook: Facebook.com/meetoosh
• Other: Tik tok https://www.tiktok.com/@meetoosh?_t=8i8h8qA2T0g&_r=1