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

Brooklyn, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Do you wish you had waited to pursue your creative career or do you wish you had started sooner?

I wish i would have started my creative career sooner, just because i was doing such fun things at a young age it would’ve been cool to document it all!!

Brooklyn, 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?

I am Brooklyn Borders and i’m a 19 year old girl from Southern Michigan. I’ve lived in a super small town my whole life called Onsted and played 2-3 sports all of highschool. I started my tiktok in 2021. I blew up from the first video i posted which was a “bikini collection”, so i figured i contuine to film videos along those lines. I now do clothing try ons, unboxing hauls, and grwm’s! I learned to take it more serious once i started gaining followers quickly, i’m still learning to be consistent and stay up with the new trends! Since 2021 i’ve worked with 100+ companies making content for them, including some of my favorite brands ever. Some emails i get still feel like a dream! I guess i got lucky with the income that comes with this job, never thought i would be making as much money as i do from one of my favorite social media apps! (Thanks to all my followers , which i like to just call my friends) I think i will contuine tiktok, instagram and youtube for as long as i feel like it, it brings me joy, and i always contuine doing things that bring me joy!

How did you build your audience on social media?

The story behind me building my audience on social media starts with a “bikini collection” video back in 2021. I then contuined to film videos along that line and post them and some blew up some didn’t, i was testing the algorithm and building my target audience. But at the same time i was just trying to have fun with it and not think to deep into it, i just loved sharing things with my followers, and i knew they loved it also. I tried answering most of there questions in my comments and tried to respond to as many DM’s as i can! I still do! I now know what my followers want to see as content and it’s pretty consistent. I also took a marketing class my senior year of highschool and that really helped me build an online presence. I just know the key to success is staying consistent and that also pertains to social media! Just have fun with what your doing, and there is always others out there that will want to see it!

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

This one is funny! This question sounds almost as if i’m like “above others” but i’m going to try and make this sound as best as possible. There are examples of some people not understanding some daily activites i involve myself in and for the specfic reason being social media. I will ALWAYS ask my friends to go take “insta pics” with me, and as annoying as it is they are always down, we’re girls so it’s expected! I will often get asked what i do for a living since i didn’t go to college after highschool, and i have a few things i do for money, i’m currently working on getting my real estate license and i manage marketing for a few companies locally, but the hard one is trying to explain “tiktok” to adults. I always get wrapped up in trying to convince them my main source of income is from the app, but it is a topic that some just cannot understand, AKA my parents, which i get. It was shocking to me at first, but that’s where sometimes you won’t understand unless your in the position, just like every other thing people do!

Contact Info:

• Instagram: brooklynborders
• Youtube: brooklynborders
• Other: tiktok: brooklynborderss & thelabdry