‘Girl who is secretly happy her neighborhood is gentrifying’
An interview with TikTok’s Saidah Belo-Osagie
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A hate crime has been committed against the New York City influencer community (someone called them boring). ICYMI explores TikTok’s latest debate:
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There’s nowhere cool Saidah Belo-Osagie hasn’t worked. The writer, comedian, and filmmaker cut her teeth assisting TV directors, working at Tribeca Film Festival, and associate producing at VERSUS creative production studio. Only now, however, does she feel ready for TikTok.
After going viral on Subway Takes last summer, Saidah decided to bring her creative ideas to the app in earnest. What’s emerged are now fan-favorite characters like “Girl who is secretly happier her neighborhood is gentrifying” and “Girl who has Muslim friends” and, somewhere in there—she hopes—the premise of her first TV show.
I sat down with Saidah over Zoom to chat about her recent viral success, TikTok as a creative tool, and her pilot that I need someone to pick up ASAP.
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I found you through TikTok, but you work in the entertainment space. How do you see the relationship between the two?
Social media, I've definitely seen a lot of people have autonomy in telling their own stories. And when I started off in the film space, I wrote and directed a short film that played at some festivals. I think that I kind of felt like I had this double life as I was doing all these different things because even when I was an associate producer, I was putting on shows at Union Hall based on reality TV. I love Love Island and Love Is Blind.
Same.
So I was putting on a show called Unscripted where I would basically have three different stand-up comics pretend to be contestants on the stage show. And I would be the host that would also be a contestant. So I was doing that show in conjunction with associate producing. And then I had, even before that, an event series called Afrobeats Futura, which was on up and coming Afrobeats artists, 'cause I'm Nigerian. I was putting that on in Soho House. So for two years I was already performing for an audience. And I didn't really know how to translate any of that to the online space. I truly think that my Subway Takes was the thing that catalyzed that for me.
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I found you through the video, "girl who's secretly happy her neighborhood is gentrifying." So you did Subway Takes and that was when you were like, “Oh, this is fun?”
Yeah. It's like, oh, I have a voice and an opinion about something and people care about that, you know? That point was a pivotal point for me 'cause it was August of last year. I'd taken a brief sabbatical and it just allowed me to reset. I was literally in Edinburgh going to see Fringe when the video dropped and I remember being like, “Oh my God. We're in this place so far away and then all these things are happening.” That idea of community and audiences. It's just everywhere. It's a global thing. And then I just started thinking about my life and my story and getting things out there.
As you're figuring out both what interests you to create content about, but also what seems to really resonate, have you started to see themes?
I'm still figuring out what type of creator I am. I think that I am very into satire. I've always been into satire and specifically satirizing this "good liberal" in the city and is doing all the right things, though they only love the good glitzy glam part of it. And a part of that is, of course, me looking at myself. I've been in the city basically my whole life. I went to high school in Manhattan. New York's changed so much. And this weird guilt sometimes that I grapple with, knowing that a part of it is made to exclude people that look like me. And at the same time I'm still, like, happy with the new wine bar. And why can't you have both? Just kind of like looking at the world around me constantly changing and how I'm interacting with it.
Are any of these themes similar to what you've explored in film?
I mean, definitely in my writing. I'm a classic New York City comic/writer, and my first real pilot I was proud of is about a Black content creator who basically recruits a white guy to pretend to be her boyfriend. Cause I would always see these like interracial couples that were using their interracial-ness for clout. And I thought that was such a funny idea. Like all these different contradictions that exist in life.
On TikTok, is the hope to build a profile for filmmaking, build a profile for comedy, etc?
I think it's definitely changed. In the beginning it was just, "I'm a clown, I'm just gonna clown out." But the more I've created different things, the more I'm like, this could be definitely a proof of concept for something. I mean I love Michaela Coel, Rose Matafeo—I love people that have just taken different snippets of their life and that becomes its own piece of work.
Have you been building any kind of consistent audience?
The thing that's consistently [performed well] is "girl who has a Muslim friend." An ally. All these things, the gentrification, I think they all kind of land in this, you know, I don't wanna call it "clout chasing liberal," but compensating.
Basically “how can I be a good person when I also kind of wanna go to that wine bar?” There's something relatable in this helplessness, almost, of "what is the right way to feel?" And I think sometimes just seeing those contradictions reflected back to me, I know for me part of my laughter was relief. I think being able to laugh at it is actually getting a little bit closer to understanding it rather than insisting that's not me at all.
As I create and do things, I'm also like, yeah, what is that feeling? But maybe it's the catharsis of knowing you're not alone in these things. But it is funny just seeing the comments, 'cause it can be so split. Some people are like, "No, I am a perfect liberal."
Oh yeah, what have the comments been like?
I feel like now the comments don't penetrate me. I think when I first posted the gentrification video, I really wanted to defend myself. Bause people are like, okay, this is some dumb transplant. I'm like, “You have no idea.” But I guess that's the thing. The majority of the people online don't know who you are. They can only engage with the work that you put out there.
In an ideal world, what would this platform lead to for you?
I would love to keep on playing with day-to-day life and complicated feelings and eventually stitch it together to either be a one woman show, a TV show. I think I'm just gonna keep on peeling the layers and taking in the world around me and reflecting on myself and putting it out.
I love that pilot idea. I wanna see the show.
Same, girl.
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