State of the Creators

Amin Hannan Chowdhury is a comedian and a creator based in Dhaka. He started working alongside Ashik, another rising comedian in the scene, through their self titled stage names Amin and Ashik

I have always taken a keen interest in the world of comedy, but with the rise of social media, it requires a different approach as a creative and as a creator to be a comedian. In this episode Amin and I go in depth about the creative process of writing a joke, what it’s like to do stand up comedy in a rising scene and how to deal with people who don’t find you funny.

00:00 Intro
02:30 Who is Amin Hannan Chowdhury?
06:30 Social media's impact on stand-up comedy
09:54 Building authenticity
15:00 Educating others on stand-up comedy
17:00 Catering to a mass vs. niche
18:20 Joking about controversial topics
20:14 Being safe with jokes
21:53 Criticisms
27:36 Defining your audience
28:55 Low-effort jokes
35:00 Custom jokes
37:40 Evolution of audience
41:31 Public speaking practice for jokes
42:30 Jokes on difficult days
45:50 Seeking validation
49:55 Authentic community
50:17 Turning trauma into jokes
53:48 The monetary side of comedy
58:19 Touring outside Dhaka
59:10 Repeating jokes
1:00:00 Consumption behaviour of content
1:02:40 Amin's dream gig
1:04:08 Cultural references for jokes
1:07:00 Future of comedy
1:08:45 Amin's goal in 5 years
1:10:00 Advise from Amin for new comedians
1:11:35 Outro

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Aydha Mehnaz has years of experience in the world of luxury and fashion, particularly through her role at one of the world’s biggest luxury brands Mugler. She has worked with some of the biggest celebrities in the world like Beyonce and Dua Lipa, and she also works as a creative consultant based between Dhaka and Paris. On top, she has been featured on Vogue, Daily Mail and plenty of other outlets too. 

I have been following Aydha for a while and her work always seemed very interesting to me.  She started her career simply through blogging and now is creating in the luxury fashion industry. 

In this episode we go in depth about what it takes to be a creative in the world of fashion, what’s life like in one of the fashion capitals of the world, and how she upholds her identity despite moving to a different country whilst working in such an alien environment.

Find out more about Tawsif: www.tawsifakkas.com

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Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/tawsifakkas

Mostly Borrowed Ideas is the brainchild of Abdullah Al-Rezwan - it's a newsletter that does a monthly deep dive and detailed analysis backed with high quality research on one specific company. MBI started off as a Twitter account (it has closed to a 100, 000 followers) but it slowly turned into a paid newsletter with thousands of subscribers.

This one is a little bit different to my other episodes because on this one I explore what it takes to be a creator through writing only - a skill that is often overlooked. We go in depth about MBI's journey and why he decided to write about finance, and choose Twitter as the main platform. We also talk about how to grow in the platform and other techniques that will allow a creator to build a following with words.

Timestamps:

00:00 - Intro
01:53 - Why it's called Mostly Borrowed Ideas
03:15 - A rant on "Originality"
07:17 - The story of Abdullah and MBI
12:13 - Do you need external push on social media to succeed?
14:42 - Writing as a skill set
17:54 - Generalist vs. Specialist
22:15 - Why Abdullah hates to talk about his Ivy League achievements
27:08 - Why Abdullah chooses a pseudonym for Twitter
30:02 - Expanding beyond a one-man creator show
37:25 - Monetization as a creator
41:08 - MBI's deep dive process
46:00 - Creative blocks as a creator
49:19 - Planning for content
50:36 - Facing the toxic side of Twitter
52:30 - MBI's future plans
54:47 - 3 pieces of advice from MBI

Find out more about Tawsif: www.tawsifakkas.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tawsifakkas
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/tawsifakkas

Issa Nibras Farooque is a software engineer. But he leads a Clark Kent / Superman life because he is also a prolific musician and he goes by the name of Farooque Bhai. 

Farooque Bhai hails from a family of musicians and change-makers - so he has always had a fair bit of music in him growing up. It was no different throughout his teens and uni days either when he started jamming and playing with various bands and sounds. But it wasn’t until exploring Soundcloud and releasing his first EP, that he started finding his niche community. 

In this episode we talk about his journey, his foray into different music genres, how he brings professionalism to his creative craft, and his new EP which drops this week. 

This is the first episode of Season 3 of the show. 

You can watch the videos here: https://www.youtube.com/c/TawsifAkkas

Shil is a public speaker, a public speaking expert and has coached hundreds of people throughout his career including TEDx speakers, entrepreneurs and creators. One of the most fascinating thing about Shil is that he has a significant case of stutter - and despite that he has built a career in speaking publicly. 

In this episode, Shil and I talk about the fear of creating publicly, about the internal challenges creators face, and how to cope with them when appearing on a public sphere. 

This is also the final episode of season 2! Thanks for tuning in all these months. State of the Creators will return for Season 3.

Scott Mellor aka Loston is a graphic artist, a musician, and runs his own design studio called the Studio Thinktank where he has worked with some of the biggest names in the world including Labrinth, Cardi B and Tom Morello from Rage Against The Machine and Audioslave. 

Scott’s based in Perth Australia and I first stumbled upon his work as a musician - only to later find out that he had more than creative facades. So having a chat with him for an episode was only the natural way to feed my curiosity to understand how he works as a multi disciplinary creative - as well as building his own business around his interests. We dug deep on his creative process, how he tackles multiple creative acts at the same time, and his personal journey. 

Hey creators, a few quick updates about the podcast as we wrap the year up. Thank you for sticking with me.  See you soon.

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Eric Choh aka ericship111 is a full time YouTuber with over 300, 000 subscribers on his channel. Eric was naturally into video games growing up - and today his channel is built around the niche of gaming - specifically the popular racing video game Forza Horizon. 

The thing here though is that I have known Eric personally for over 10 years now. We used to go to the same university for our Bachelors of Architecture and in some ways we were both...let’s say slightly disinterested... on the degree which in a way I guess formed our bond. Even back then, I remember Eric used to just love creating videos and put them up on YouTube. We’ve kept in touch every now and then but a decade later, Eric has turned his passion for gaming into his full time job and that’s pretty awesome. 

In this video, we talk about Eric’s journey into the world of YouTube and gaming, the doors it has opened for him, the struggles of a content creator and how he continues to serve an audience for over a decade. If you are looking to start a YouTube channel, changing careers, or just curious about the world of digital content - this is the episode for you. 

Visit www.tawsifakkas.com for more information. 

Kerrie Allen is best known for helping creators connect to the industry. 

She also works as a consultant for small to medium businesses, and also has a product line under the label of ‘hey control freak’ which sells products aimed to help business owners to control their chaotic life. So we talk a little about running a business too. 

This episode is going to be slightly different because Kerrie is not a creator in the traditional sense the likes of whom I usually have on this show. 

We speak a bit about Kerrie’s journey, what it means to be creative in a business landscape, and what you need to do to prepare for the creative  industry. 

Sameer is an 18 year old content creator who aspires to be the voice for those who don’t have one. 

His content is about social issues and hardships in Bangladesh and he highlights how we can help or at least try to help solve these problems on an individual level. 

I first found out about Sameer through one of his videos on Instagram where he was passionately talking about the culture of after school tuition in Bangladesh - I remember about this insane culture and how it impacted me negatively as a student so it goes to show his choices of topics are quite interesting. 

While Sameer is not a seasoned creator, he amassed a sizeable audience in less than a year of starting out and that impressed me enough to bring him on the show even though he is still learning the ropes. 

In this episode we talk about what it’s like to be a young creator tackling different topics on the internet, how Sameer tackles a growing toxic audience and a fair bit about the world of creating content for social media.