We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Nicque Robinson-dela Cruz a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Nicque, thanks for joining us today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

I’ve taken a lot of risks in my life, my biggest one probably joining the military and I can talk about that, but I actually will talk about the risk of trying content creation.
I rose to fame during the pandemic doing comedy skits on my new favorite anime: My Hero Academia. I eventually branched into other media I loved like Marvel and Broadway.
I honestly didn’t know I was funny until the videos started blowing up, and I had mostly been posting music videos for my past years on social media. But I decided to try something new. My style was very chaotic, but it was genuine to me and how I naturally am, and so I had to not be afraid to be weird and different. This unpolished way of making content was working exponentially better than any carefully produced stuff I had put out before. A lot of people don’t want to be cringe and that keeps them from trying. I wasn’t afraid to be “not cool,” and it worked.
Another part of the risk was just the fact that I make content about nerdy fandoms. Those communities have always been unwelcoming to girls, especially Black girls, and so it was definitely a leap of faith to throw myself in that world and possibly not be accepted. There was a lot of verbal and emotional violence from men in the beginning for sure, but I carried on because I genuinely loved the media I was making content about. I think my passion outshined those people and now I’m established as a key figure in movie/anime/nerd media, to all types of people, including people that don’t look like me.
When people ask me about getting into content creation, I always say to try a whole bunch of different things until you find something that works. Then, find a way to keep recreating it over and over again. We never know what our X-factor is, that thing that shines through from you into the screen that makes people stop and watch, that keeps them coming back to your page. But you have to be willing to experiment and possibly look foolish…and even be made fun of.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

When you build a sizable platform, you can capture the attention of more than just casual consumers of social media. You can also capture the attention of large companies, companies that need social media promotion. I am the largest Black woman in film and anime content (non-cosplay), and I regularly work with the largest movie studios and anime streaming platforms in the world to create custom content to promote their releases. Social media is a new frontier for businesses and they are always trying to take advantage. It’s not even an option anymore, it’s necessary to remain relevant. Though influencing seems pretty simple, those of us who have consistent success on social media have developed skills for that specific kind of production, skills that very few people have. That makes us very valuable to companies that might be a good fit to partner with us.
Sometimes I produce spotlights where I talk about movie-making (like I did for Avatar: Way of Water), sometimes I create skits in my style for a particular release (like I did for The Boys). Sometimes I cover an activation and make a vlog about my experience (like I did for Percy Jackson). The project I’m probably most proud of is when I wrote, produced and acted in a digital series to promote Morbius in which I am the new social media correspondent for the Daily Bugle. This actually placed me as a canon character in the Sony Spider-man Universe/MCU.
I do my best work when I’m allowed to do things in my own style, because that is what my audience has grown to expect from me. It’s also what’s most authentic and fun to me, and when I’m having fun, the content is great!

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

I’m an actor first and foremost, and so film/TV has always been the endgame for me. Social media fame was always meant to be a stepping stone to get there. I love creating and storytelling, but I am happiest when I have a script in my hand and ONE character (haha) to throw myself into. The absolute dream would be to be a Marvel Cinematic Universe hero. Lofty goal, but what I’ve achieved so far is also pretty lofty, the things I get to do are already insane…maybe it won’t hurt to keep dreaming crazier.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

It is an incredibly emotionally draining thing to be a creative. The things we create are very personal to us, and so it can be hard to detach and have a traditional work-life balance, or just any separation from work at all. It’s not an exact science, there’s SO much trial and error, actually regular failure can be a part of the work, and the criticism is very often not constructive but cruel. Besides the stress of the work itself, members of your audience can also feel very entitled to you as a person, and will also justify dehumanizing you because you are an entertainer. Everyone thinks that handling nasty comments is easy, but no human was meant to take this much information in, all the time. We weren’t meant to handle interacting with thousands, thousands having some sort of access to you. Everyone has a breaking point. Most of us create because we love it, but sometimes other people make it hard…people that will insult us one day and demand more entertainment on another. We have to set boundaries, and it takes time and painful experiences to really get it right. Even the most extroverted of us find that our social batteries run out quicker than they did before. Sometimes being a creative is diminished because it’s “just entertainment.” As someone who has served in the military, worked for state government, worked in corporate America, being a creative is absolutely a job.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.nicquemarina.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nicquemarina/?hl=en
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicque-marina/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/nicquemarina