We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Alex Nguyen a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alex, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

It’s actually a pretty funny story because this was something that I never really thought about growing up as a kid. Like I had no intent on doing anything creative/artistic, and I’m still not sure if it is something I would like to do forever. Long story short, I wanted to become a dentist going into college. However, after going through my first semester, I knew that dentistry was not for me. I hated school and the biology courses I was taking, were not it. During that time though, one of my best friends, who I made fun videos with in high school, was just always bringing me along to his shoots as a videographer/photographer, and I kind of just learned from watching him. And eventually I started to just do it, too, as a little side hustle in college. Fast forward, I end up graduating college, switching majors, of course, but with no clue of what I wanted to do afterwards. On top of that, I graduated college during COVID, so the job market was terrible terrible and I actually ended up starting a marketing agency with the videographer/photographer friend where not only did I create videos for clients, but I started to create videos for fun again, too. Although it was quite the battle in the beginning, that’s really sort of how we got to where we are today.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

What’s up, I’m Alex Nguyen, a lifestyle, fashion, and sneakers content creator.

My Journey:
So I guess I started making videos in high school when my friends and I used to make random dance and skit videos to post on Twitter for kicks and giggles. Fun fact, he was the creator of the “You Got Eczema?” Vine, and I will forever run with that. Anyways, all of this taught me how to edit and what not. So when I went off to college, it became a little side hustle of mine to make videos for smaller companies and organizations around school. I never really thought of it as much more until I graduated and had absolutely no idea of what I wanted to do. It was also during COVID season, so the job market was terrible. It left me with no option, but to just continuing to run with it, but I also decided to add the fun back in, too, and started making videos to post on TikTok. Now, here we are today.

While I technically work a 9-5, my focus is primarily on social media and content creating. My goal as a content creator is to educate and entertain by sharing whatever my interests are at the time, be it in sports, fashion, or life in general.

Beyond that, I aspire to use my platform to create opportunities for talented individuals who I think deserve to be seen. I’m inspired by this thing that my friends call the “artist mentality” of putting the homies on. Like I see all these people on social media really making a difference, whether it’s positive or negative. Like they’re really growing big enough platforms to influence so many in the world. So I want to be able to do the same, to be able to create a big enough platform to where I not necessarily influence people, but am able to showcase someone to influence an audience of their own in whatever it is that they’re doing, whether it be a chef, a teacher, a dog walker, or even a janitor for all I care. It doesn’t really matter, but there are just so many great people in this world who just deserve a chance. Someone who I think does this well is Keith Lee, if that helps to explain things better.

What Sets Me Apart:
I guess what makes me unique is the mix of my interests and experiences. I’ve always been curious about various things growing up and just loved to learn about any and everything. In turn, this has helped me with being able to connect with a more diverse audience. I always aim for my content to feel relatable, avoiding the typical “influencer image” and instead presenting myself as just a regular guy, like literally the guy you look at and think, “if he can do it, I can do it, too.” Plus, I add a healthy dose of goofiness to the table.

Nonetheless, I’m happy to be where I am today. I never expected to come this far or even in this direction, so I’m just straight up grateful. And to all the homies, my message is simple: Be yourself. It may sound cliché, but there’s truth in it because if you think about it, this world is so big that there’s bound to be someone out there looking for exactly what makes you unique. Embrace it, and you’ll find your way and the people you need around you.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

The one thing that I always heard when it came to making videos was “quality over quantity.” I do think that it is true, but to an extent. First off, you have to understand that quality is based off of subjectivity. The consumer of social media content is different than a client you’re producing a video for. That person scrolling on their phone just wants to be entertained by the quality of the content (what the video serves), rather than the quality of how the content was produced. Now, of course, that client is gonna want the coolest video ever, BUT honestly, if you think about it, now even these big time companies are posting your regular everyday videos on social media. Nonetheless, your quality of production is not that important.

However, I did say that it is true to an extent because as someone starts to develop an audience on social media, an increase in quality production along with the quality of content can start to matter. People like to see growth, so if your videos are improving on both scales, your audience will enjoy you more.

Last point is that I think it is “quantity over quality” in the beginning. This is because like 9 times out of 10, a person starting off with an audience of 0, no matter how amazing you make the production of a video, you’ll most likely get the same amount of views on that video as a video you spend absolutely no time on producing. It’s about efficiency and then once you start to grow, the seesaw of “quality vs. quantity” starts to flip. I’m only stating this because I made this mistake when first starting. I spent hours on single quality videos for them to do just as well as a video I made with no editing. In fact, some of my most viral videos were non-edited videos.

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

To be honest, I think the people who are good at building an audience are the most shameless people. You, sort of, just have to not care about what people think of you anymore to be successful, to be able to post anything. I say this because what held me back for the longest was thinking that all of the homies were going to look at me funny. In reality, no one really cares, and if they do, good for you cause they care. If they “unfollow” you, cool, it’ll bring your engagement rates up and it’ll help your algorithm.

The other reason I said that you have to be shameless is because another good way to grow is to copy, or as some say “be inspired” by others. There’s a reason all of these big businesses have knock off brands. I mean everyone knows who Great Value is, right?. The work is literally done and proven to work, you just have to implement it into what you’re doing. For an example, my first viral series, and what probably helped me grow the most on social media was copying another creator’s video. It was literally the exact same concept with a change of words.

In conclusion, be shameless.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.tiktok.com/@frickinalexnguyen
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/frickinalexnguyen/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FrickingAlexNguyen
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@FrickinAlexNguyen?si=YWVpkRQqYRSWmlIM?sub_confirmation=1
• Other: https://beacons.ai/frickinalexnguyen