Taz Alam talks to Charlotte West about poetry, authenticity and the pressure to share on social media
Photography: Linda Blacker / Beauty: Julie Wong
Bounding off set filled with an infectious energy that she didn’t have when she walked into the studio an hour earlier, Taz Alam (of ClickForTaz fame) is grinning from ear to ear.
When looking through the images from the photo shoot, she coos over each one, pointing out the huge difference between the first photo and the last.
In typical Taz style, she refuses to take any of the credit, praising photographer Linda Blacker at how well she managed to make her relax whilst in the spotlight for her first ever photo shoot.
The 26-year-old creator from Cardiff has more than a million subscribers on YouTube, and yet is still so humble and down-to-Earth.
Perhaps it is a result of her avoiding overcomplicating things when it comes to her job: no manager, only a few brand deals to her name, barely even posting on social media outside of her video-focused world.
Nowadays it feels rare to find creators so committed and in-love with their content; it harks back to the early days of YouTube, when the platform was for those of us needing an outlet and a community.
Once we settle down side-by-side on the sofa, that beaming smile reappears on her face… it strikes me that Taz doesn’t really do formal, so it comes as a surprise when she tells me she studied law at Cardiff University.
“I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I was kind of a nerd – a geek – and I did base my worth on getting good grades, but I couldn’t see myself in the legal world,” she admits.
“I wanted to do something creative, so decided to go for it: post consistently, and thankfully it worked out. But I was always, and still am to this day, a massive YouTube fan. I don’t see myself as ‘a YouTuber’, I’m just someone who watches YouTube and every now and again posts videos.”
She makes it sound so simple, this technical industry, dominated by algorithms, that attracts millions of eager eyes ready to criticise any mistakes. None of this pressure seems to noticeably rub off on Taz though – she knows what she likes to make, and she sticks to that.
Her bubbly personality is arguably her most defining feature, and yet following graduation she fell into a dark depression that many ex-students experience after entering the ‘real world’ for the first time.
The way out, for Taz, was using that sadness to spark her creativity, and so she wrote poetry. After being introduced to the medium by her friend, she posted them online and found that her words were resonating with a lot of people.
“I got to 200,000 subscribers from it, which was crazy, but it was never what I wanted to do. That was just a fluke. The
videos I make now are the videos I’ve always wanted to make, but the poetry thing was just – I don’t even know, they were just really sad, depressing poems.
“I was so sad and lost and I didn’t have many subscribers so had nothing to lose. All I could be was honest at that point. I couldn’t fake being all happy and smiley.”
Her content now is dominated by up-beat challenge videos, a stark difference in tone from her poetry, and I wonder whether it was a conscious decision to move away from the spoken word. She emphasises that she fell into poetry, and suffers with imposter syndrome as a result, but the challenges and social experiments are the content she has always been most passionate about.
“I stopped being sad and I was still making really sad poems because I thought that’s what people wanted from me. I can only create what I am, and I wasn’t feeling sad anymore. I also felt like I said everything I wanted to say with the poetry.
“Funnily enough, I’m getting back into it as I realised, as a human being, you have all kinds of emotions. You’re not always happy, you’re not always sad: you are all these beautiful things. I just like expressing myself, whether that’s through making someone laugh, or making someone cry. It’s all in the fun of creativity!”
Taz goes with her gut, and that has clearly served her well so far. I comment on her authenticity as a creator; after being so vulnerable it would be understandable if she built up some walls for protection, however Taz has managed to keep a healthy balance of having boundaries, and still managing to portray her honest self on camera.
It’s a challenge that many YouTubers face, but it seems to come quite naturally to Taz.
“That’s really kind of you to say, thank you. I don’t know how to respond – you’re just saying, well done on existing! I come from a background where you have to get good grades and do the absolute most to just get by, and you get no thank you for it because that’s just the expectation. Now, all I do is exist and they’re like: ‘you’re so good at existing! You are so amazing! You deserve all of this!’ I’m just doing the basic minimum and getting so much praise.”
Taz underestimates her talent, but while she sees her own work as filming herself ‘existing’, she acknowledges that other creators, naming David Dobrik, are going above and beyond: “he posts two crazy, amazing videos every week. He also has a second channel. He’s also really good at social media. He’s good at everything. Then I compare myself, thinking I need to be on that level, but I’m just not David Dobrik.”
When it comes to other social media platforms, Taz struggles. It seems to have come as a byproduct of the job that she didn’t sign up for. I ask if she feels the pressure to be present across every platform to help build her audience or keep engagement high.
“I do feel pressure. I feel like I should do it,” she admits. “But with, for example, Insta Stories – no one cares what I’m doing today. They don’t care. If I post something, it just doesn’t feel natural. I like it more when it’s videos where you’ve edited it and it has a storyline.”
She then bounces the question back to me: “How do you feel about social media? Because social media is for anyone and everyone.” I tell her that I don’t have much of a following outside of my friends and family, and
still I question whether I’m sharing too much. Taz agrees, “I quite value my privacy, my personal life, so I just never know with social media where the balance is. Beause then you also feel like, am I not sharing enough? It’s such a mind game. I still haven’t quite figured it out. You go onto YouTube because you like making videos, right? Not because of social media.”
Other byproducts of the job that Taz has kept her distance from are the ideas of management and brand deals. When I bring the two up, her enthusiasm diminishes slightly.
“The truth is, I don’t know what I’m doing in that area. All I care about is creating videos and I’m really happy with what I’m doing with my content.” This is clear when she describes her process with brands.
“My experience is: I’ll get emails, and if it’s a brand I like I’ll speak to them, and then you do the video – it’s very formulaic. I tend to focus on integrations, rather than dedicated videos, because that way I can still make the content I want to do.”
It appears that management will remain on the sidelines for a while longer, but brand deals are something that she wants to utilise more in 2020 for the good of her videos.
“I really want to step up in terms of the type of content that I make. Last year I made a video about creating a fake art gallery, and it’s the video I’m most proud of, but very different from my other content.
“I want to make more videos on that scale. That’s why I would like to work with more brands, because they give you the budget to create those kinds of videos.
“I hope in 2020 I can make bigger projects and original content. Obviously not all the time because I’m human, but I always want to strive – my whole thing has been that I just want to get better and I want to grow. As long as I can look back in a year’s time and see that I have grown then I’m happy.”
As we stand up to leave, Taz leans over to give me a hug and I’m reminded of just how friendly and welcoming this community can be.
Taz is the epitome of laid back, approachable authenticity: qualities that are the reason vlogging has been loved by viewers and creators alike for so long.
It’s reassuring to know that creators like Taz are still out there, and that they will continue to keep the platform grounded amongst the whirlwind of drama and commercial interest.
As Taz puts it: “I’m just going to carry on existing and see where that takes me.”