We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jesus Alvarez a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Jesus, appreciate you joining us today. Can you walk us through some of the key steps that allowed you move beyond an idea and actually launch?
Starting my Tiktok Content Creator career was no easy walk in the park, but with passion and personality I was able to go from 10 or 100 followers to almost 22.4K followers in less than 2 years. The journey to how I got there is quite simple, as Tiktok was becoming popular and blowing up in the early 2020, during the Pandemic we were all on “lock down” without being able to socialize or communicate with the outside world due to the Coronavirus. My time spent indoors wasn’t wasted, but it became dull and boring, so I would scroll through Tiktok and see all these Creatives come up with such interactive and cool videos that communicated or engaged with a wider public audience across the globe…and I thought to myself saying, “Ok I can do that.”
So I started slow, making some funny voiceover videos, but then I picked up the pace with what was trending at the time…still I felt like that wasn’t enough, that cherry on top to rocket launch my account was a struggle. As I thought, researched, and planned to myself…I began to see content, even faith-based inspired content, that really helped people to overcome the anxiety and depression we all felt during the pandemic period…and again I said to myself, “Let’s do it in Jesus name.” And so I began to share my beliefs and views, even offering prayers and words of encouragement to others with my content, and my views and follower count started to SKY ROCKET! Since then on I’ve only been creating Christian based content, even sharing my testimony with others how I came to the Faith, and then from here and there I still do humor based videos but now also recently engaging with a more political crowd of audience as well.
After generating followers, uploading engaging content, now I’ve also created various social media profiles such as Instagram and Youtube to connect with an even more larger audience outside of Tiktok! I may not be as famous like Taylor Swift or Bad Bunny, but it feels good to know and realize that with my creativity and life experiences I can share with others…it’s nice to know I can make a small difference in the world, which can then cause a ripple effect across the globe.
Jesus, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
When it comes to my career as a TikTok Content Creator and Creative (outside of Tiktok)…I am known to produce content that’s both motivating and engaging with the viewer, from sharing my views and beliefs, to also providing advice and wisdom with other viewers in regards to the Faith or even just other aspects of life. From time to time I may also produce humorous content, such as “Christian Humor” since I enjoy to make others laugh and I can be quite the comedian myself.
Outside of TikTok, there’s my other life as a creative in being a graduated Graphic Designer, also a aspiring male model or actor. As a graphic designer I enjoy making “faith-based” content to share with others, but also I work on various projects or tasks with other individuals to help promote their business or services, creating engaging content or assets that captures the attention of their audience…thus helping their business, services or events reach a wider audience engagement and for my portfolio to keep growing and expanding to showcase for potential future clients on my various social networks.
As a model, quite simple really, there’s my goal in bringing awareness to men in regards of “body image” since I’m known to be a skinny, scrawny some individual…but with my modeling career I want to inspire other men to love and care for their bodies, regardless their body image at the moment, that they can always improve and strengthen their bodies with the proper care of nutrition and exercise (as I am practicing to live out in my own life as well).
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
Starting up as a freshly new TikTok Content Creator wasn’t easy, especially when I reached a huge amount of attention and popularity as I shared my story or testimony in regards of my Faith. Most days I would log onto my TikTok account, just to see data analysis of my viewers, and I would notified of possible threats or cyberbullying for sharing my very own story…it was deemed as Hate speech or even Harassment, knowing myself as an individual with a charismatic personality…I would never ever upload or post such content involved with Hate or Harassment of any nature.
Most of the time I would reply to the commenters who were actually harassing my account, to also submitting disputes to TikTok as a way to defend my account and it’s content. Sometimes it worked, and other times it didn’t…and one day I got a notification from TikTok of “permanent account deletion” because of my content. At first I thought about staying silent, reviewing all my content to erase any that may have caused such a battle between me and TikTok with its many viewers worldwide…but instead of playing silent…I became louder and prouder instead.
First step I did was gathering all the evidence and accusations against me, then I created content to spread awareness about the amount of unfairness I was experiencing with TikTok while other’s were left alone showcasing their privates or more, and when I uploaded my content in spreading awareness…not only hundreds, but thousands of people began to spread awareness as well of TikTok treating them unfairly as well. We all ganged up together against TikTok, taking legal action even of our Amendment rights being violated in regards to Freedom of Speech and Religion.
After TikTok received enough letters from various creators like I, and reviewing all our content as we spread awareness…TikTok listened, learned, and now protects even our content from false allegations or accusations made by other viewers on the platform.
I would not be silent, and the platform would not keep me quiet, and so I refused to be speechless in a short time such as this. And it’s not just only on TikTok, but all social media platforms that we are still taking up this fight with…until all platforms allows everyone to share freely without the fear of penalty,
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
The most rewarding aspect of being an artist or creative, such as a Content Creator or a Graphic Designer, would have to be the amount of people who reach back to me eventually…and I just get “flooded” with the amount of gratitude they have for my content.
I’ve received messages from individuals who didn’t commit suicide because of my content, to even others converting to christianity because I was able to present them with the message in a way that wasn’t forceful or overbearing for them…but loving, accepting and maybe even relatable towards their own personal areas in life.
Reading those comments, messages, or even watching a reply on their profile just fills my heart up with such encouragement and goodness to see that my life…as small as it can be compared to such a big world we live in…can have such a ripple effect in others.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ajgra.phics/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@AJ_grap_hics
- Other: TikTok:
https://www.tiktok.com/@j_e_z_u_z_24
Image Credits
Images and Photographer: Studio 1 (Parkland, FL/ Miami, FL)