During today’s HOLR Chats, Tamil influencer, Cynthia Victor, talks about inspiring others to embrace their beauty and celebrate diversity through her content creation.
Cynthia Victor is sitting down with HOLR to discuss how she uses her platform, heritage, and culture to share beauty tips, bring awareness to the Sri Lankan community, and shine a light on body positivity. We discuss how Cynthia- whose TikTok boasts over 1.8 million followers- uses her channels to inspire her audience to spread love, celebrate diversity, and embrace beauty.
Talk to us about how you got started in the space.
When I tell people about my social media journey, I love to tell people I’m a COVID Baby. I’ve always been a beauty and fashion girl and I’ve really loved being creative. In college, I was a business major but I would wake up 2 hours early to do a full face of makeup! My friends told me that I should make an Instagram account for this and start posting pictures. As a result, I slowly started my makeup page, where every day I would post a makeup selfie.
COVID then rolled around and my sister told me “This was my time to shine,” since we were all stuck at home due to COVID. Therefore, she mentioned that she would help me edit videos since I wasn’t tech-savvy. TikTok was a platform I had heard of but never really used, so I asked some younger kids to help me figure out the app. My sister then gave me the idea of matching my makeup to something I find in the house and that’s how that series was born. During COVID I would pick something random up and match my makeup look to it- I also got really creative and started to use the apps more. On my Instagram page, I would post more pictures while simultaneously posting on TikTok. As a result, I gained a lot of momentum, in which I would post multiple times a day. I also showed more cultural looks. Within a few months, I joined Sephora Squad and after that, I decided that I could do this full-time. I have been sharing more fashion and lifestyle content since.
How do you inspire others to embrace their beauty and celebrate diversity through your content?
One thing that I stand by and will always preach is, “One woman’s beauty is not the absence of your own,” and that really resonates personally with me. Growing up in a brown community, we have the “ideal, perfect” woman- skinny, light-skinned, long black hair, tall, etc. It’s always been what you push your woman to behave or be like. As a result, I grew up with a lot of comparisons. I am the polar opposite of what beauty standards are, especially in the brown community. For me, it was always very hard to like or accept myself. Even in Hollywood, Bollywood- it was very hard to see myself as beautiful. When it came down to the representation of beauty, I was never really seen. However, for me, when I grew up, watching certain YouTube videos made me realize that there are darker-skinned women who are confident in themselves. I think just me existing- as simple as that seems- allows other women to feel beautiful. In this sense, you can be yourself, and the things that make you you, can also make you feel seen and feel represented by other communities.
Tell us about how you are an advocate for anti-bullying and body positivity.
With online bullies, those people are suffering with so much more than what they’re putting out in terms of hate. They’re trying to mask what they are feeling by putting out hate. However, I think it’s solvable in that they need to accept the fact that when they love themselves, nobody is pointing fingers or trying to look for hate. Truly successful people aren’t the ones criticizing. Having tough conversations with individuals can change the way we see bullying.
What’s your ultimate goal?
In terms of content, I would love to reach more people and share more about my culture- I feel like it is very underrepresented. To be able to put myself on the map and be seen as a representation would be an honor. I would also love to be able to help my family stay together and enjoy our time. This career has brought me so much more time with my family and I want to take full advantage of it.
What’s next for you?
This is the time for me to look within and find a bigger purpose. I would love to meet people in real life and do workshops. I feel like I am truly making an impact in communities so I would love to bring in positivity talks and help empower women. I want to be able to put a face to the followers I have.
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Published by HOLR Magazine
Image Credits: Rony Anthony