An Interview With Edward Sylvan
Don’t work harder, work smarter; and focus on your strength. There was a time when I thought, “I should be like everyone else and do YouTube, do this, do that”. But by spreading myself so thin, and doing a format that I didn’t love, I was actually working TOO hard and neglecting my bread and butter, Tik Tok — a format and platform that was my strength. Working smarter would have meant doubling down on Tik Tok and then just converting viewers to my YouTube or other platforms.
As a part of my series about leaders who are using their social media platform to make a significant social impact, I had the pleasure of interviewing Vi Luong.
Born in Silicon Valley, Vi Luong grew up in an Asian-American household, where both English and Vietnamese were spoken. She feels very connected to her heritage and frequently shares this with her over one million followers. Upon graduating in only 3 years from Chapman University with a B.S. in Business Administration and Management, Vi would soon after test the waters within the corporate world. Vi ultimately decided to take social media seriously and make it her full-time job. She has quickly become a role model for Asian-American girls and women all over the country as she celebrates Asian culture, through food, beauty and entertainment content.
Outside of social media, Vi loves to play the piano, which she has been playing since she was just 6 years old. She is a huge fan of anime, Korean dramas, and true crime documentaries. The social media star also loves to stay active, by lifting weights, hiking, and going on nature walks with her boyfriend. When she feels like she needs to get away, she loves traveling to Europe, and more especially France, Portugal, and Spain, but also is a frequenter to beautiful Lake Tahoe.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
In college, I took a Social Media Marketing class. It was a 3-hour night class, so naturally, I was bored out of my mind — however one day, I decided to work on my own Instagram for fun during class. When I got a 9–5 job, I continued working on it during weeknights and weekends, and picked up Tik Tok along the way once that came out! After amassing 1 Million followers within 7 months and fully placing my corporate salary with the money I was making from social media, I quit my corporate job. And now I’m here.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began this career?
I don’t know if I have a “most interesting story”, but the most interesting moment that happened to me was sitting amongst all of my childhood idols from YouTube, movies, popular media, etc. this past May at the Goldhouse Gold Gala. I still think about this day a lot — I had no idea until about 4 hours before that this scenario would ever happen! Truly one of the best surprises of my life, and the biggest highlight of my career.
You have been blessed with success in a career path that can be challenging. Do you have any words of advice for others who may want to embark on this career path, but seem daunted by the prospect of failure?
My 50-year-old therapist helps drill this point into my head constantly, but it is that failure is natural and nothing to be afraid of. The only person who will notice your “failures” is you, and without failure, you don’t learn how to succeed. My generation has a funny saying from Tik Tok that goes “it’s just one flop, not a flop era. Sometimes, after the hardest flop, comes the biggest slay”. I think as young people, it’s easy to beat ourselves up for mistakes or failures. However, talk to anyone who is older, and they will tell you that they’ve faced numerous moments of failure in their life; but they kept going and came out winning even harder. As long as you keep trying, you are winning!
Ok super. Let’s now jump to the core focus of our interview. Can you describe to our readers how you are using your platform to make a significant social impact?
A lot of my followers view me as an older sister of sorts, and even coined for me back in the day the term “digital big sis”. To me this means sharing my journey in various areas of life to make people feel that they are not alone, whether it’s my relationship with my cultural heritage, mental health and therapy findings, or simply my self-confidence journey. Recently, it has also meant sharing my ADHD diagnosis, which resulted in hundreds and hundreds of shares and DMs from those who finally felt seen and the courage to get mental healthcare for themselves. This is the way I like to use my platform — to be a digital big sister.
Was there a tipping point that made you decide to focus on this particular area? Can you share a story about that?
There wasn’t a tipping point, but a whole lifetime of personal experiences such as cyberbullying, being in a dysfunctional household, growing up as a minority, etc. that made me want to share them with others. Growing up, I felt extremely alone in everything I was going through. YouTubers were barely even a thing, so there was no “mentor” figure for me. Once I started Tik Tok, I knew I wanted that to be my focus — I wanted to be candid and help people feel that they can do this and they’re not alone.
What specific strategies have you been using to promote and advance this cause? Can you recommend any good tips for people who want to follow your lead and use their social platform for a social good?
I don’t like to be super polished all the time and people love that. For example, my Instagram and Snapchat Stories are often just a bunch of sh*tposts, or random dumps of what I’m going through, thinking, or feeling. But this helps people resonate and feel even more connected. So, my biggest tip here is to not feel pressure to make everything perfect, curated, or pretty. Sometimes my “ugliest” pieces of content are the ones that go the farthest.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why? Please share a story or example for each.
1. Success is not linear. Being so young and taught in school and traditional work environments that “the only way to go is up”, I struggled with this a lot last year when I became self-employed. The reality is that there is an ebb and flow to everything, especially in content creation.
2. Being controversial isn’t always the best move, despite the very short-term effects it may bring. There were times where I hung around more “controversial” people and observed the way they went about content creation and noticed that a lot of it lacked forethought and tact. Unfortunately, there were also times where they would rub off onto me, and I would try my hand at being slightly more “controversial”. It never worked out. I always came out wishing that I just stuck to my authentic self.
3. Being cookie-cutter and changing to be like others will never work out, period.
4. Don’t work harder, work smarter; and focus on your strength. There was a time when I thought, “I should be like everyone else and do YouTube, do this, do that”. But by spreading myself so thin, and doing a format that I didn’t love, I was actually working TOO hard and neglecting my bread and butter, Tik Tok — a format and platform that was my strength. Working smarter would have meant doubling down on Tik Tok and then just converting viewers to my YouTube or other platforms.
5. Comparison really is the thief of joy. I cannot even tell you how much time and energy I’ve lost in the past to scrolling the FYP and comparing myself to other creators. The moments I stopped comparing, I flew and stood out.
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
If I could inspire a movement, it would be an “offline weekends” movement. Offline weekends are something I came up with and started doing over 6 months ago and has been the biggest benefit to my life. It means no going on social media on Saturdays and Sundays, and instead focusing that time on living IRL. I believe that through limiting time on social media as much as possible, people gain the most valuable introspection, and this introspection trickles positively into every area of their lives.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
It’s a bit silly, but my life motto/quote has always been “Destiny is for losers” — Blair Waldorf in Gossip Girl. Everything I have achieved in my life is because I took initiative and sought things out for myself, reached out to people first, etc. I don’t believe in merely letting things happen to me or falling into my path.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂
Ah, I would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with either Jay Shetty or Jackie Chan. Jay Shetty because his meditations and wellness podcast have changed my life, and Jackie Chan because he had the ability to bring my family together and make us laugh.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
I’m on Instagram, Tik Tok, Snapchat, and YouTube Shorts! Below are all my handles:
Instagram: @_viluong
Tik Tok: @viluong
Snapchat: @viiluong
YouTube Shorts: just my name! Vi Luong
This was very meaningful, thank you so much!
Stars Making A Social Impact: Why & How Vi Luong Is Helping To Change Our World was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.