Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Fathima Ali. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Fathima, appreciate you joining us today. Going back to the beginning – how did you come up with the idea in the first place?

When I gave birth to the first daughter, I was hit with PPD. At the time I was so young, 21 to be exact. I had no idea what PPD was or that it even existed. It’s so taboo in the south asian culture to even discuss any of these things. I was at the point that i wanted no interaction with anyone. My husband knew all of it & he knew my passion for makeup. It was also my therapy. He came up with the idea for me to start my own youtube channel posting my makeup looks. He told me I wouldn’t have to interact with anyone and its something i enjoy doing. He thought it would help me get out of my PPD. It actually helped me out so much. I ended up loving content creation. With it now being my full time job.

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.

At the time when I started video form content was only on YouTube. Instagram reels and TikTok never existed so if I had to start, I had to start on YouTube. At first, I was not sure if this is something that I would want to do or feel comfortable doing. I was afraid of people that I knew would judge me doing that who does it was not considered a job like it is now. So I started off filming on my phone, getting comfortable Recording myself at the time someone I knew had a DSLR camera so I borrowed it and filmed my first couple of YouTube videos and eventually I just posted it at that point. I realize this is something that I wanted to do and my husband help me invest in equipment that I need. Such as a ring light, a tripod and DSLR camera. At the time One of the main problems that I faced that I assumed I would never was having people that I personally knew in my day-to-day life support me in my contact journey. And when I say that what I mean is sharing my work, letting their friends and family know. It was hard at the time because I specifically remember there is one person I asked “hey could you share one of my YouTube videos on your Facebook profile and ask your friends to subscribe to my channel? Their response was “oh that’s weird” It was pretty hurtful because that’s not the response I had expected, especially from someone I knew. But I eventually overcame that because I started to see how much other people actually enjoyed my reviews and tutorials and slowly built a community of followers on YouTube and I hit 1K subscribers by that point Instagram reels started coming out and everybody was starting to get into short form content and I slowly shifted away from doing long content to short form content to short form. THIS is where I MET my BEST FRIEND. I am forever grateful for this journey of mine, because if it wasn’t for starting this I would have never connected with her and some other amazing people. You will meet people who share the same experiences and the stress you undergo. Now I look back and imagine me telling my younger self that I would be here in this position doing something I love and making money? The younger me probably wouldn’t believe it because my mom never allowed me to wear makeup. Our society is always built on “what would people think” ! I feel proud of what I have achieved so far and can’t wait to see where it takes me. It’s been ups and downs there are times where I thought I should just give up, I’m glad I didn’t when I see how far I have came.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

The only way to build your audience on social media is just go for it. If you are sitting there afraid that no one‘s going to like your content. No one‘s gonna watch you. You are wrong. You will attract your kind of people. It might take some time but you’ll get there and it’ll be worth it, having one follower is it huge deal. You have to keep posting you have to be consistent. It does not matter if you’re talking about the latest product or old products as long as you’re consistent and you’re honest and you’re being true there will always be people who enjoy your content. Don’t let other peoples follow account get you down don’t compare yourself to others because everyone’s journey is different. No one‘s journey is the same there are people who started doing the pandemic posting on TikTok that viral and then there are people like me who started posting in 2016 still growing. But the thing that’s most important is that you’re happy doing it.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

My only goal in this journey is to do something that I love and I’m happy with. As I mentioned earlier, this is my therapy. I love making contact every time before I sit to film I envision in my head what I want to create and I let my creative flow when I’m filming, but it gets even better when I’m editing being a mother of two daughters, I do want to be able to make money to support them but as I mentioned, I want to do something that I’m happy doing is what makes me happy.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zaalibeauty

Image Credits
The first image is my BEST FRIEN Shugraa! The group picture of girls are other beautiful content creator friends I’ve made along the way that I cherish so much. & of course my husband and I. And someone so dear to me a picture of my younger self and my dad ❤️