- TikTok creator srilankanbruh on his content creation journey
Lankan TikTok is its own vibrant little community of creators large and small covering all sorts of topics – from the more serious TikTokers covering topics like politics and Sri Lankan crime stories, to the casual TikTokers who use their platforms as a means to spread humour and to just have fun.
This week on Brunch, we speak to a TikTok content creator who has just hit a milestone that is a dream for any content creator, casual or professional – 100,000 followers.
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Salina Liyanage, or as he is better known online, srilankanbruh, has over the last couple of years gained his following across TikTok and his other social media platforms by creating unapologetic, unique content that speaks to him as a person and what he thinks his audience wants to see.
By his own admission, he can be a bit of a troll, and this comes through in some of his content, where he pokes fun at people or trends and creates his own little satirical skits – something he has faced a fair amount of hate for from time to time.
For a little more insight on the bro behind the bruh and his journey to becoming a creator with a fanbase of 100,000 followers and over three million likes, Brunch chatted with Salina, or Sali, on all things content.
The bro behind srilankanbruh
Sali’s journey as a creator began in 2011. He is far from an overnight success, and has, over the course of his content journey, experimented with different platforms. Taking us back, he shared: “I started out at 15 as a YouTuber and vlogger and was one of the first Sri Lankan vloggers of that age on YouTube. My main goal at that point was to get a Silver Play Button on YouTube, and it was really inspiring to see other creators receiving that button and doing unboxing videos.”
Sali could be considered one of the OG Sri Lankan TikTokers, having downloaded the app in its first iteration as Musical.ly.
Before it became the brand we know today, TikTok went by the name Musical.ly. In essence, Musical.ly was a separate platform that was acquired by Beijing-based tech company ByteDance, which already owned the popular TikTok, a Muscial.ly equivalent (though in China, TikTok is called Douyin).
In August 2018, TikTok absorbed Musical.ly, and all Musical.ly accounts were automatically migrated to TikTok. Sali’s Musical.ly journey was short-lived because he just wasn’t a fan of the platform at that point.
Then came 2020, and with it lockdown: “Everyone was on their phones and had a lot of free time. I actually downloaded TikTok again just to make fun of people,” Sali explained. “I had a lot of free time and I thought I should just give it a try. It was started entirely just for fun, not at all for money or for work, but day by day, I kept getting more and more views and comments and I just really loved the feedback, so I decided to do some proper research and see what I could do.”
This was the start of a lot of experimentation, and there was a two or three-month period where he would sometimes post up to 10 videos a day, and it paid off. His following kept growing, and eventually, srilankanbruh and its recognition and fanbase led to Sali being offered a job at an agency looking specifically for a TikTok content creator.
“TikTok has helped me out so well in my career, and even to start my own thing. In 2021, I started an online shop, the SLBruh Shop. I’d started a shop before in school, but it never really worked out properly. However, with the SLBruh Shop, I marketed it entirely on my TikTok platform and it became very successful – even the website for the shop was designed by web designers who contacted me through TikTok and offered to partner with me to design the site so that they could use it for their portfolios and marketing as well.”
To date, Sali doesn’t consider himself to be a full-time or ‘professional’ content creator. He creates content that he thinks his audience wants to see while working in his spare time, balancing between his full-time job (he is marketing manager at an immigration consultancy firm, an opportunity that also came about through his TikTok platform), his online shop SLBruh, and his passion project the Raksha Riders MC motorcycle club (@raksharidersmc on TikTok).
Building the srilankanbruh brand
Srilankanbruh as a name is quite unusual, so we asked Sali what inspired the name. “I initially started out as ‘thesrilankanbruh’. When creating my social media platforms, I didn’t really want to use just my name and I’d seen lots of creators who weren’t using their names, but rather variations of their names or something else that represented them.
“In 2016, the ‘bruh’ meme was very popular and I just knew in the back of my mind that it would be even more popular in five or 10 years, and that was what led to it,” Sali shared, adding that he was very particular about being srilankanbruh when he started out, as opposed to SLbruh, because at the time the acronym SL for Sri Lanka had been extremely popular and he had wanted to go against the grain.
He has overcome his aversion to the acronym, building SLBruh into his online shop, and even shared that he was working towards launching his own digital agency which would work with freelancers across the globe and would also embrace the acronym and be called SLBruh Media. He has hashtags that his followers use such as #SLbruhgang that also contribute to his overall platform of srilankanbruh.
Achieving 100,000 followers as well as a total of three million likes across all his content is no small feat, and it came as something of an incredibly welcome surprise. “I was doing the thing I love most when it happened – riding my motorbike. Because of the current petrol shortage I’ve been staying with my aunt as it’s closer to work, but I’d just gotten a little bit of petrol and I’d decided to go home for the weekend.
“When I left my aunt’s place, I had 99.8k followers, and when I got home I had hit 100k followers as well as three million likes at the same time! It was really amazing!” Sali recalled, adding that it was also a win for his 16-year-old self who had always wanted to be a creator making an impact and inspiring a large number of people.
“My 16-year-old self inside my head was screaming, ‘We did it!’ and at the same time, the overconfident part of me was also like ‘I knew I could do this, and now I have’.”
The nitty-gritty of being a content creator
Because of the nature of Sali’s content, it’s not something he puts a great deal of planning into; it is mainly informed by what he sees online and finds funny and interesting, but he has developed a keen sense for figuring out what his audience would like to see. “If I think ‘this video will go viral,’ it almost always goes above 100,000 views,” he explained, adding that it was a mixture of gut feeling and also research that he had done over the years, looking at his engagement, likes, and comments.
Speaking of bans and negative reactions, we asked Sali – who has dealt with a lot of hate over the years as well as people calling out his content every now and then for being insensitive or disrespectful to certain groups – how he handles people who disagree with his work or take offence at it.
“A lot of the time, what I do is trolling,” Sali emphasised, noting that even when he trolled someone or made fun of their content, he reached out to them to make sure they were okay with it. And in many cases, there is absolutely no conflict. There are some cases where people ask him to take down a post if there has been unexpected backlash, and this is something he has always done on request, even if the video in question has gone viral.
However, he specified that he only linked with the specific people related to the content he was making, and beyond that, if other people who viewed his content were upset on behalf of a person or a group, he did not take it into consideration quite as much, since at the end of the day, his content was meant to be fun, and to a certain extent, to troll someone.
“People do need to be able to take a joke and the thing I’ve found as a Sri Lankan creator creating for Sri Lankans is that people’s mindsets and attitudes can be very entitled and dominant to the point that they personally attack someone who is creating content. I get a lot of hate and yes, trolling, and that is fine to a certain extent, but I also feel that people have to learn how to take a joke and not attack other people. It can really hurt people, especially those with mental health issues and those who cannot take such personal criticism.”
Outside of dealing with audiences, Sali also shared the other struggles of being a TikTok creator, one of which is the lack of a personal system to be able to appeal to TikTok should a creator’s content be banned or flagged, especially if this flagging was wrongful. There are very limited options for appeal built into the platform, and there isn’t really anyone to communicate on a one-on-one basis to make a case for unflagging content.
Another drawback that Sali shared he had faced on a personal level was a lack of respect for creators from marketing agencies, noting that he had undergone several bad experiences with TikTok marketing agencies especially, and that he now refused to link with clients through marketing agencies and insisted on linking with clients directly.
One such example he shared was where he was contacted to create a TikTok for an energy drink brand he had already worked with previously through an agency, but at the end of the day, had to do multiple unnecessary takes of the same video for it to be approved, only to be told after approval that the agency was no longer able to pay him the rate previously agreed (which incidentally was an already discounted rate that he had offered because he had a history of working with the brand).
Speaking on that unpleasant aspect of commercial relationships that don’t always work out smoothly, Sali said: “I had to disagree, for my self-worth, the effort that I put in, and the respect that the platform deserves. And I did get verbally harassed by the agency that managed that particular project.
“For me, that was one of the hardest pieces of content I’d ever had to make, and I also later found out that the agency was sending the (unpublished) video that I made to other creators as a benchmark, which I also found very disrespectful because it is still my content, the rights to which I own.
“I’ve not spoken about it publicly because I understand that they’re someone working in an industry and so am I, and everyone has bad days. However, on the whole, there can be a certain level of disrespect for creators and the work they put in from agencies and even from brands and clients themselves sometimes, and that needs to change.”
Marking the milestone of 100k followers
In celebration of reaching 100,000 TikTok followers, Sali has pulled together an event for the #SLbruhgang that functions not simply as a meet-and-greet and celebration, but also as a chance to give other aspiring creators the tools to become creators themselves.
The event is called #SLBruh100K, and Sali took us through what he hopes to achieve from it. “I did a casual meet-and-greet when I hit 20k followers, but this event is the real deal; I’ve got a venue sponsor as well as other sponsors coming in to work on it. I have to give a huge shout-out to the SLbruh team who have been working day and night with me to make it happen.
“The event is completely free although pre-registration is required and it takes place as a workshop covering what to expect as a creator, how to become a creator, and how to edit a video (I’ll be showing how I do it and the free smartphone app I used to edit), as well as a Q&A which will then be followed by an after party. The Q&A has some special guests attending that I’m keeping under wraps for the moment. The after party itself will feature a popular TikTok DJ – DJ Shaggy – and is just all about having a good time,” Sali explained.
Looking back on his journey, Sali had just one thing to say to other young people looking to become creators themselves – you’ve got time and it’s not about being fancy. “Don’t stop your journey even if you mess up; you’re still young and you’ve got plenty of time. Put in the time. You also don’t need an expensive camera and other equipment to do it – you only need your smartphone. Even to be a YouTuber or gaming streamer, your smartphone is all you need. You can do it.”
To be a part of #SLBruh100K, please visit the event’s official Instagram page @slbruh100k for more information on how to register.
