We recently connected with Dieter Meza and have shared our conversation below.
Dieter, appreciate you joining us today. Do you wish you had waited to pursue your creative career or do you wish you had started sooner?
I grew up when YouTube and myspace were the dominating social media platforms. Back then we didn’t have “influencers”, and you didn’t have the plethora of vloggers on YouTube that you do now and the ones that were vlogging were small, unknown, and it was relatively easy to know who they were, even if you were not subscribed to their channel.
Now in this digital age there are many platforms for people to use as creative outlets for others to see and to get paid for their work. A lot of people now want to be influencers, foodies, vloggers, and social media models. I did dabble in vlogging on YouTube sometime between 2009 and 2011, it was literally just two friends and I sitting in a car just talking about the most random things people in their twenties talk about. We didn’t even have a name for our show or channel and in the end the title screen for that first and only video read “The Show”, that’s what we decided to call it.
At that time I was a 19 or 20 year old adult working for a security company based in the San Francisco/Bay Area. We had no direction and no production value but it was fun to do and I’m sure if we had stuck with it then we would have gained some sort of following over the years and maybe solidified our position in YouTube.
I definitely wish I could have stuck with creating YouTube videos and content but live and learn, no regrets about anything,
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
So, donuts are my main thing but I also create content with coffee, pastries, and sometimes food. It’s kind of an interesting story about how my donut Instagram came to fruition; August 2016 I decided that I wanted to get physically fit, drop some weight, lose some body fat, and get strong. Over the next year or so as I was pursuing this goal and looking to professionals, mainly bodybuilders, for inspiration and workouts I noticed that after every bodybuilding competition these bodybuilders would indulge in…donuts! Some would go for pizza, cupcakes, burgers, cookies etc. etc. but donuts were the big one. As I reached my fitness goal I decided to partake in this donut indulgence on a weekly basis and from there on that’s how I got started.
What sets me apart from others is that I am in a very niche type of food. Most foodies on social media are posting about all kinds of food but me, I’m pretty much sticking to donuts. There have been other creators that I have interacted with, thru social media, that were part of the same niche but that was really only during the pandemic and now most of them haven’t been online in a year or two. It’s a challenge being this niche but I’d bet there aren’t that many donut content creators out there as active as me
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
The most rewarding thing for me creating the content I do is definitely being able to eat the donuts that I use in my content, aside from that I like creating content that I like and want to create. If there is an idea I have for a video that I think is funny then I’ll create it, if it doesn’t get great exposure that’s ok because I like the video
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
My advice would be to understand that it is a very saturated market you are starting in and it is going to be hard at times. I’d also say do not start a new account for your content, use a current one you have, even if it’s a personal one. When you create a new account you are starting your following from zero but using a current one you have will expose your content to the following you already have established making it easier to get your content to more people.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dieterthedonuteater/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwSzbcs5CTM4k6ILW9dN-UQ