The Instagram beauty on embracing her quirks, friendship and the pressure to create perfect content
Photography: Emma-Jane Lewis
“I’m just a normal Croydon girl who lives in a small flat and plays around with makeup” Ling Tang, also known as ling.kt on Instagram and YouTube, says modestly. The 23 year old may be ‘just a normal Croydon girl’, but her makeup videos have made her hugely successful online where she has attracted 609,000+ Instagram followers and 72,000+ YouTube subscribers.
“I never take myself too seriously,” she says, and a quick look at her Instagram proves exactly that. The self-confessed ‘blogger and weirdo’ prides herself on being relatable and carefree, and it’s her quirky personality and exceptional makeup skills that have drawn a huge following. Ling is passionate about encouraging people to use makeup as a creative outlet, rather than to hide insecurities.
“I feel like once you care less about what other people think of you and
say about you, you start living so much more and it feels so good! I embrace my acne and my large pores, I don’t care! You shouldn’t wear makeup to impress a boy, or because your friends are wearing it. Don’t wear mascara because you feel people will like you more – physical beauty is skin deep. That’s the purpose of my blogging, to show people that makeup should be fun.”
Having loved makeup since the age of 10, Ling discovered the beauty community on YouTube when she was at secondary school.
“I remember seeing Andrea’s Choice and I stayed up until four in the morning and pretty much watched all of her videos, I was desperate to see more from her. From a young age, I was inspired by actual people in front of a camera in their real bedroom. This was before YouTube became more business-oriented. These were people sat in their bedrooms with a normal camera on, nothing fancy, and I was really inspired. I didn’t think I would ever go into it myself, though.”
Ling hasn’t always been as confident as she is now, “I’m dyslexic, so I found it really hard to keep up with all the other kids at school. I always felt like I had no future and I think that’s what my friends thought of me. I didn’t believe in myself.
“I studied Sports Development at university, which is such an unknown degree, but I thought I wanted to get into fitness and sports. It didn’t work out, so I said to my mum and family, ‘I’m going to take a gap year’” – her voice drops to a mischievous whisper – “I didn’t, I dropped out without telling them!”
After a number of different jobs, including real estate and hospitality, Ling decided to take a risk and try her hand at creating beauty videos.
“I did a few videos, but I wasn’t being myself because I thought you had to be perfect and modest, and very ‘put this blusher on elegantly’. I thought that was what people wanted to see. But applying makeup isn’t like that in reality, when you think about it you can’t help but make faces when you put mascara on.
“I was done trying to be this perfect advertorial blogger, I just wanted to be me. I can’t believe how far my channels have progressed now, especially in the space of a year and a half.”
Ling’s followers have rapidly increased since she started making videos in July 2016, particularly her Instagram, making her a perfect example of the new wave of bloggers using social media to showcase high quality content: “It’s really important all your pictures are high quality and clear”, she advises.
Blogging has also enabled Ling to create genuine friendships with fellow influencers.
“In school, I always felt like the odd one out. I accepted that I was never going to have a real group of friends
“I’ve also had people be mean and unsupportive in the past, but I think they just didn’t understand the career path I have chosen. I’ve made lots of friends through blogging, I genuinely want to text them every single day and call them and see how they are. It feels good to finally have friends like that. They’re much more open minded and bubbly and less judgemental than the friends I had in high school.”
Social media success can result in expectations to reach certain levels of engagement, a pressure Ling has to deal with daily.
“I do feel a bit of anxiety and I do feel down sometimes. I think, ‘my videos aren’t doing so well today, why is it? Is it because of the look? Is it because I posted half an hour late? Is it because I posted it too early?’”
Whilst a lot of top bloggers have whole teams working behind the scenes on their content, Ling does everything herself.
“There are days when I think ‘I don’t have a production team and I wish I did’. I’m so used to filming everything by myself, but it can be hard maintaining an Instagram page, especially when you have a huge following who are demanding content. I try to keep up with an Instagram theme but a lot of days I can’t be bothered. That’s the
real honest truth. It does sometimes break my heart when I can’t post things for my followers every day. Recently,
I have been thinking about hiring a photographer once or twice a month to do some photoshoots around London.”
As well as creating her much-loved beauty tutorials, Ling uses her platform to publicise humanitarian causes, but finds this is not always easy.
“If I were to promote a charity for breast cancer I would get, for some weird reason, backlash and I don’t know why. People say, ‘what about kidney cancer?’ or ‘what about liver cancer? What about brain cancer? Why don’t you support those charities?’ But I’m just one person with one account.
“So sometimes I shy away from promoting humanitarian work, I really do. I would rather do it in my own private time than on my Instagram. I really want to go to Cambodia with my partner and help the kids out there but I wouldn’t promote it on my Instagram because I know I will get backlash. People will say, ‘what about this country and that country Ling?’ It’s hard to please every single person on the internet.”
London-born Ling is also conscientious about diversity within the beauty industry, particularly when it comes to online influencers.
“I think Asian influencers are out there, but they’re not noticeable enough and they’re not credited enough, that’s what I think anyway.
“In the past 5-6 years, there has been so much more diversity within beauty campaigns and much larger colour ranges for foundations, concealers and powders for all skin tones and I’m so happy to see that. I feel like high end brands are increasing diversity much more compared to affordable makeup brands, though. L’Oréal, Maybelline and Sleek are the only drugstore brands that I really see pushing diversity.”
Not only does Ling’s following continue to blossom, but she has recently secured prestigious brand deals, such as becoming part of the L’Oréal Beauty Squad.
“I now see more companies working with influencers from all races, different religions, different hair types, different skin colours, and I like that because they’re real people that you can relate to.
“I think a lot of brands are willing to work with influencers because they are so bloody honest. Influencers can actively help brands become better.”
As the blogosphere continues to evolve, Ling hopes brands will continue to diversify their campaigns and really listen to what consumers want. One thing is for sure – Ling will continue to be completely and unapologetically herself, despite what people think.
“I’ve had a few people come up to me and say, ‘you look so different without makeup’. I say, ‘duh! Did you really think I would look the same when I took off the red lipstick?’
“A lot of people want you to be this perfect thing. I don’t want to be perfect, I just want to be me. I want to share what I’m passionate about.”