What's up Bolly stars? My name is Shiksha Mahtani aka Bollygirl and I’ll be your host today
on behalf of Pinkvilla USA. Thank you so much for being with us here today on this fan meet and greet.
Today's guest I’m very excited to introduce to you is Sejal Kumar. She is an Indian youtuber
and vlogger who has been creating fashion and lifestyle videos for about seven years and
has over one million YouTube subscribers. She has also recently started creating her own
music and music videos to go along with them not to mention, Sejal has won various awards
for her creative and original content. Please join me in welcoming Sejal Kumar.
Hi Sejal how are you?
Hi, thank you. I’m great thank you this is awesome thanks for having me. I’m just like looking
at everyone and where they are and hi everyone.
Now let's go ahead and go around and let the fans introduce themselves.
Hi Sejal my name is Sania I’m a second year finance student in Austin Texas so yeah
Hi Sejal my name is Sammy and I live in Dallas. I’m actually a student at the University of Texas at Dallas.
Hi Sejal I’m Aishwarya and I’m also from the Dallas area and I also go to the University of
Texas in Dallas and I’m currently a senior in healthcare management.
Hi Sejal my name is Priya Patel I’m a business student at Michigan State University where I
also live but I live in the suburbs in an area called Graham Lake.
Hi Sejal I am so excited my name is Surbhi Subramanya I am based out of Fremont,
California I used to live in LA before for two years.
Hello Sejal my name is Neha I’m currently in the Dallas area I’m studying marketing but I will be
moving to New York city soon to continue my studies as well as continue like content
creation just see where I can go with it so I’m really excited.
Hi Sejal I’m Shailee I’m 17 years old and I’ll actually be attending Michigan State University this fall.
All right thank you everyone so those are your fans today Sejal. I wanted to go around and let
them each ask a question so just say your name before your question again all right guys so let's start with Sania
What would you say is your recipe for success? Is it to focus on more consistently putting out
you know shorter pieces of content or do you still want to keep like more quality videos that
are more long form like on YouTube. So what works best for you and what would you say is
your advice to newer creators?
Dude that is an existential question honestly okay so like I’ve been doing this for really long
so I think you have to be constantly open to changing and evolving your format of whatever
you're doing for sure I always look at music artists for inspiration in terms of like how they
carry their career especially people like Zendaya or Ariana Grande you know like they
started as like Disney kids and now they’re who they are so it's interesting to see because
my journey has been longer so like I don't think my tips will be like oh like two reels today
and you'll be popular yes you will be like make some trendy reels and you possibly get like
millions of views but once you get that then you have to kind of like keep going and figure it
out afterwards I do think I don't know just like trying to like channel your personality through
whatever you're doing at whatever point in time through the medium that feels most
acceptable to people will be a good recipe but at the same time if the medium feels like it's
not your cup of tea I would say screw it and make your own rules.
So Hi again my name is Sammy your career revolves a lot around social media and
feedback and interactions with your fans and followers how do you deal with hate and non-constructive criticism?
I don't know I have no answer on how to deal with it I genuinely don't I think it's very
personal to everyone and also doing a bunch of like work on yourself and like asking
yourself the questions about why is this particular thing affecting me so much? Maybe
like working on yourself will give you some answers for sure it’s like a deeper answer like I
don’t like it when people say oh brush it off, it doesn't work you know so I think it’s like a
much deeper question because like criticism well I read something recently which was
about choose your feedback loop very carefully like you know how if you create something
which is close to you so you create like this amazing piece of content or like you write
something or whatever you’ll only share it with people who you think have earned the right to
read it or see it right? So why take feedback from anybody else but them it makes a lot of
sense but that's hard to do so I guess that would be my thing I’m figuring it out myself honestly.
Hi again I’m Aishwarya and my question was in the beginning of your journey how what was
the hardest part about putting yourself out there and how did you push yourself to do so
because personally there's so much that I want to do but it's just kind of like scary to take
that first step so I wanted to ask what was your kind of journey like into that or how did you get there?
Yeah I totally understand I can completely empathise. Oh so well you will feel that like if you
do choose to like do whatever you're doing for a longer time, you will feel that at every
interval that you're trying to do something new for sure so I was in a college where people
literally shat on me for like starting a YouTube channel no, no jokes I would like walk in the
corridor I would like hear people like whispering and like be like oh we saw your video and
everyone in my college was ready like conventional only commerce, only eco so that was
really hard for sure but the cool thing was like I knew I was doing something really authentic
so once I got over the fear of like pressing the share button the first few times I was like okay
at least I’m not suffocating myself by doing something just to fit in because that feeling is
really good you know once you like
yeah anything that you do that’s authentic never feels like a waste of time even if you you
will cry, you’ll feel bad but it will be worth it you know you keep reminding yourself like I’m in
that phase when I’m reminding myself that it’s okay if my viewers hate me, if I want to try
something new you know so I guess that that would be my advice.
Hi again my name is Priya and my question is after being in the limelight for so long and
dealing with you know the comments and opinions of you know your fans other people on
the internet and haters how do you determine success on your own terms?
I don't know I’m fine I’m redefining it I have no idea. Okay so recently I stopped checking
numbers because they keep going up and down and they slow down and sometimes they go
really fast and I’d attach like self-worth to numbers everyone does that, okay? And it's totally
normal because you feel like that's one also like how your profession be saved is like the
main thing people judge you on right if you're at a party or whatever so I think I’m trying I’m
trying okay? I haven’t done it like I’m trying to attach more value to the increment in my
personal skills more than the result I’m trying to do that so I guess if I’m able to do something
that's more authentic to me if its yeah like not even better like if I’m just able to get some to a
place which is like slightly truer to myself I’d count that as like a plus line as opposed to like
more views or more money or anything of that sort.
Hey Sejal Surbhi again. My question to you is I know you're a girl with big lofty dreams so
what is one goal you have for this year for yourself be it personal or professional it can be anything?
Well I guess my goal I don't know I have no goal for like this year specifically I think going
forward yeah I just want to put out stuff without being scared like how I’ll be taken or like
what will do to my whatever you know because there's so many people in the industry like
managers or whatever who constantly telling you oh no like whatever so I just want to just
put out stuff that feels true to myself and then we’ll see whatever happens because whatever happens that's my goal.
Hi I’m Neha I had a little bit more specific question in terms of content creation I’m kind of on
the same boat where there are only like a very handful of people that want to do anything
similar to what I want to do most of my friends are like pre-med and trying to do medicine
and stuff so it's really hard to find even someone to want to take videos of you or do videos
with you I wanted to know like in the beginning stages when you were doing this all by
yourself like how did you produce the content, how did you edit even like for many years you
had a staple intro like how did you shoot that and like edit that did you have help and like how did you get there?
Oh yeah so you can look up like a bunch of videos especially these days a lot of people are
just shooting on their phone inside their room one one frame just some snappy editing or just
like a cool concept and I think shooting in one place these days is like appreciated so you
can put your own spin on it there's so many ways to shoot something creatively just on a
tripod and I still do a bunch of that kind of shooting anyway because there's no one to shoot
anyway. Look at Casey Neistat look at there's so many people on Instagram doing some
really interesting stuff just like editing hacks that you can pick up shooting on your own you
don't really need anyone to really help you and even collabs I know like it's tough to just find
people to like collab with but it's fine if you just think of it as I need to get around this for the
creative concept think of it like that.
Hi Sejal its Shailee again. First off before I ask anything I just wanted to let you know that I
love how your content just shows your true personality like when you smile in your posts and
just videos I can just tell how genuine that is so just thank you for being you. So my question
is if you were to go back and tell your younger self like one thing it could just be even about
life or just in general what would you say?
I don't know I feel like my younger self was a little more I look back at my younger
self actually and take inspiration from my younger self now because I feel the longer you
work and the longer you're submitting yourself to other people's opinions and like whatever it
kind of makes you jaded so I look back at my younger self I have to be like oh like how I
used to gutsy I just don't get it you know so I think that's really cool when you're
a kid really like what other people say doesn't matter so much so I would want to get that go
back to that or just like inspiration you know.
All right now I wanted to ask you how did the pandemic affect your video making process?
Not like not in a big way I used to shoot a lot on my, in my house by myself anyway I guess
just like not working with videographers was a bigger change but I love just like doing stuff
on my own anyway with a tripod and just for the help of a friend so honestly like it's been
good I have enjoyed it yeah.
I’ve seen your fashion evolve so much again from the beginning and I think now that you're
when you've been in the US your fashion content has also just been so different and you
reels have been so different and amazing so I wanted to ask how do you adapt these trends
for like where you're at or where you're personally feeling because I’m sure you know all of
us don't feel completely in tune with like the trends that are going around on social media
primarily. So how would you say that you've adapted maybe took pieces and then put your own twist on it?
In terms of clothes I only wear what I like I don't think I’d be able to wear something that's
just I love a lot of new times that are around I love fashion, I love fashion so much I love like
just trying new styles I don't think I’ll be able to wear something that I don't like so I don't
even try and I just pick up like whatever I like and also even as a strategy I think just trying to
be true to yourself always works because otherwise you're a clone of like everybody whose
there and it doesn't help even strategy wise and in terms of like adapting to video like
formats and new things that people like to consume that’s tough. I made a couple of reels
that people have shat on when I make fun of trends which is fine I get it, I get it but I don't
know I’m also just trying to experiment like whenever there's a new format if you go through
my YouTube channel and if you like analyse it you will see the shift in like formats that I’ve
tried and it's all been based on basis of like what I’ve seen going around but I’ve always tried
to make it in my own way and how you make something in your own way is I’ve realised
comes from place of comes from a place of not having the right technique to do it because
like style has evolved from not having enough resources in my opinion and then you just make that your thing.
When this pandemic is officially over what do you want to do slash where do you want to go?
Pandemic is over I think I want to be here in the US and see if I can do something else I
definitely want to shoot the video for my next song I’ve just been putting it off because
there’s nobody to, it's just unsafe right because I can't get the people to do it so I’ll probably
want to do that first and the rest I just want meet my friends and chill in my house. I’m kind of
done with going out and going to places because I feel just I’ll be too conscious about
wearing gloves and sanitizer and stuff like that so I’ll be happy to meet people at home.
Again I think we kind of touched on this earlier but what's your favourite thing about living in
LA because I used to live right near LA and I miss it a lot so I was wondering what you think
of it and what’s your favourite thing about it?
So I stayed in Mandaluyong for a week so I can't really say what I liked living I mean whatever
I liked that it was artsy that there are lots of like quirky, eccentric people and it's totally cool
and I like that people have the confidence to just be themselves that was really cool other
than that the weather was really nice it's always sunny yeah and then like California is nice.
So what is your favourite project that you have worked on throughout the years and why?
Well the project I did for my first song with Creators for Change and Michelle Obama was
really cool because they gave me a budget and I just got to hire a team and chill and sit back
as a producer so it was really cool yeah I felt very legit, it was awesome you know to do be a
part of like a big project and yeah it was really stressful to make the song because it had to
have a meaning and the lyrics had to be like super true to the meaning and the storyline was
all good but once all of that was done I was the most I was relaxing so it was great.
It was such a proud moment for me to watch you on Netflix in the Engineering Girls show so I
just want to know is there another season coming what's the deal?
We shot the second season and I don't know why it's I guess it's just stuck in production we
shot it two years ago almost now 2019, November so I don't know I don't know what's
happening maybe but I guess stuff like this happens with like productions when certain,
because of certain exams or whatever it doesn't go through so I guess that's what's
happening but I’m happy that at least the first season is on Netflix that's good yeah.
That's good to know that it's already shot I thought it was not done yet.
Oh no it's been shot a really long time ago and all of us are always just like when are you putting it out
Hi Sejal so I just want to know what does a typical day in your week look like you know when you're creating content?
Well it depends it's not it's not like a it's not like super regular really I think like three days a
week or like two days a week I’ll shoot something the other two I’ll possibly sit and ideate.
The others I would possibly tackle with like plans and like finance stuff because there's a lot like
every time you make some money you have to do all the tax stuff related to that so that
takes a lot of time so I would do that and I would be on a bunch of calls with different people
I’m working with and talk to them all the time. A lot of time I actually spend just like
researching and thinking about what I can do next like cool stuff I can pick up so yeah I
spend a lot of time thinking and just like researching I think that would take the most amount
of time apart from shooting I edit also sometimes or I just you know give it to an editor or to
edit so that also was pretty time-consuming so that's what it sort of looks like.
Now if you weren't a youtuber what would you be?
I don't know I want to do something small I definitely wouldn’t want to do something super
demanding and really yeah I think I’m I’ll be okay to do something really chill but still
something creative for sure likeI don't think I’d want to work in a corporate company or something like that.
Okay and now you've actually been making original music recently which is super cool. I love
it. Can we look forward to more original music from you in the
Yes I am working on it it’s going to be really cool I’m going to I’m going to try something
super different and we'll see if the people like it but it’s going to be really cool, really different and just a big change.
Thank you so much for being with us here today Sejal.
It’s been really fun talking with you on behalf Pinkvilla, thank you.
Of course thank you for having me and thanks guys this was fun I had a really good time
talking to you, hearing your stories nice to meet you.
Thank you, thank you.