Star Power Vol.48 by NYOTA Magazine

from the editor HELLO THERE, READER! In this Star Power Issue, we got to chat with content creator Sabrina Bahsoon, who the world now knows as “Tube Girl.” Bahsoon talked to NYOTA

about

pursuing

her

passions,

manifestation, and planning her content. I hope you enjoy reading the issue and that it inspires you to go after your dreams.

YOURS TRULY, Carol Wright EDITOR IN CHIEF @_CAROL_WRIGHT

contents 1. Editor's Letter

3. Star Power: Sabrina Bahsoon

#StarPower

Sabrina Bahsoon Interview by Carol Wright | Photographer: Fred Stauffer | Fashion Credit: Moschino

Sabrina Bahsoon has taken the internet by storm over the past few weeks by creating videos on the tube that have become the ultimate example of self-confidence. Bahsoon talked to NYOTA about pursuing her passions, manifestation, and planning her content.

Tell our readers a bit about your upbringing in Malaysia. Was there a clear idea of the career opportunities you should pursue even at a young age? Yes, 100%. Especially in Malaysia and in Southeast Asia, you have this expectation of doing the main career paths (law, doctor, engineer). I think that my parents really place importance on academics and doing well in school and making sure that you're not distracted by anything else. I always was a very musical person and a very creative kid. I think that most of my dreams and goals when I was a child would relate to doing things in music or acting or singing. Just really big dreams, and I think that when you are in a place like Malaysia where you don't have a lot of people from there who do make it into Western media, and then growing up and watching movies where you only see a certain type of person play these roles, you really stop believing that that could happen for you. I was acutely aware of the fact that people who look like me weren’t on TV. I would even think sometimes - I don't have green eyes, I don't have blue eyes, and I don't think I could make it into movies. Even as a kid, that's kind of crazy to think about. So there was a lot of pressure for me to go into a certain type of career, and I studied law at university in the end because I was pressured up until my academics. My whole life I was thinking that I was going to do that and the other option would only happen if the world ended. So I consider myself very lucky now.

You received your law degree from Durham University in the U.K. While studying did you ever pursue creative outlets or interests that weren’t related to law? I love that question because that is literally what I did. I did anything and everything I could while doing my law degree so that I could feel some type of creativity. I ended up being a project leader for this pro bono society we had, and under my project, I was supporting this charity, A21, which helps survivors of modern day slavery. So as the project leader I was able to make fundraisers, and what I did was make a fat charity thrift sale. I collected a bunch of clothes, designed the flyers that would go out, and curated the clothes I collected. I was part of DCFS, which is Europe's largest student-led fundraiser. I was a model for that, was able to do all the marketing for them, and participated in shoots and that was my first experience doing shoots. My last year of University I was also able to be part of another fashion show, which was a really competitive fashion show and I’m grateful for them to have given me the opportunity. Those were the ways I kept sane almost in my law degree, because I really, really was struggling trying to be myself and do the degree.

#StarPower

Prior to the content that made you “Tube Girl” you would post about university life on TikTok. At that time were you creating content as more of an outlet or were you hoping to turn it into something bigger? I knew that I couldn't take TikTok seriously alongside everything. I knew that even if I did blow up, it wouldn't have been a good time because I was really trying to finish my degree. When I tell you I got my dissertation extended like three times, like it’s real. For me I was just trying to finish, but TikTok was a creative outlet. I was thinking, this is to prepare myself to get used to making videos and to get used to putting myself out there. Putting yourself out there online is very difficult in itself, and I was just trying to get more comfortable with the platform. I love making videos, and I went viral a few times, but I never found anything that made it stick in the sense of where I would gain followers from those videos. I think that I was trying to figure out my niche and then it took me a while after university to figure it out. I would joke with my friends and be like, I’m a TikTok star and they would call me TikTok star too, so they fully fed into my delusions as well. I think it did help a lot, balancing school and the creative. If I made a video that day I would feel more accomplished than if I wrote an essay, you know?

In 2022 you shared a video of yourself and a friend dancing on the tube but it wasn’t until you started sharing solo videos of yourself in August of this year that something shifted. What do you think caused this shift? Honestly, I think it's my energy. I felt like before I wasn't really being authentic in the sense of like I was just doing things that I thought would work for other people. I posted the tube video not thinking too much about it and just thinking, ‘hey this is kind of cool.’ I believed in myself more now and wasn’t putting pressure on myself to make videos to get famous. I was just like, this is me and I'm going to put it out there because I stopped caring about what people would think and I just stopped caring what others opinions are. Since I was still in university, and my university town was so small, if I posted a video I’d go outside and see the people who watched my video and I felt so uncomfortable with that. As soon as I moved to London fully, there was nobody in my close circle that could judge me for what I was doing. So I just started posting like I didn’t care and didn’t care about anyone around me and that’s what has made me successful I think.

#StarPower

How much planning is going into your content creation? Are you very intentional with everything from the camera movements to the music choices? I'm most intentional with the music choices. I'm very picky and I'm a little too picky with my music choices. I think that's the most important part and the camera movements I do practice before. So I think when it comes to the intention behind my videos, the two aspects I do think about completely are music and camera movements. That’s because filming the videos is actually quite hard because you can’t film them when the train has stopped, you have to wait until it goes, and it stops every 30 seconds or every minute. So I only have a small time frame to actually film the video unless I want to go all across London and do it at every single stop, which I prefer not to do. Those are the two aspects where I’m like, ‘ok I’m going to practice my camera movements and then my music’ but that’s pretty much it.

Did you start filming videos to help yourself feel less concerned with what others think? No, it didn't start off as a confidence thing. I was doing it more because I needed to start just putting myself out there and stop being so afraid. I think moving to London and being in a big city where so many people don't care what you're doing in public really helped. I needed to start getting out of my shell and putting myself out there because I knew as I did, the rewards would come. I love how everyone is using it as a self-expression, self-confidence thing because I also love hyping up my girls, because my girls are everything. I think that girls struggle so much when it comes to confidence, and then when they are confident, there’s such a backlash of ‘you're too vain or you’re arrogant.’ I feel like girls really do struggle with that, especially now in our society where there’s so much noise about how we should be and how we should act.

You also have partnered with MAC and had the chance to walk LFW in the MAC Cosmetics show. When that opportunity came about did it feel like the stars were aligning and your decision to pursue your passions was paying off? I feel like I manifested everything. I genuinely feel like I'm the biggest witch. I'm actually named after Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, but I genuinely think that I manifested everything while I was doing my degree. The first makeup I ever bought was the Mac concealer and the Mac bronzer and I used them every single day. Having the full circle moment of this brand I’ve wanted to use my whole life has reached out due to me going viral for something like music, dancing, and fashion - I was so happy! These are all of my loves and passions and I’ve always wanted to work in these fields. Before this I was literally applying to marketing internships for music and marketing internships for fashion houses, and I was getting rejected left, right and center. I was applying to just be a studio runner and I got rejected. I know anyone who has freshly graduated, the pain of all of those rejections and you're just thinking, ‘I just worked so much and I can’t even get a studio runner job. As soon as I started putting the effort into pursuing what I wanted, it came to me because I was focusing on only that.

#StarPower

“I think that girls struggle so much when it comes to confidence, and then when they are confident, there’s such a backlash.”

#StarPower

What advice do you have for people who want to feel more confident? The first thing you need to do is stop speaking about yourself negatively. You should always speak to yourself positively. I think there's so much critique in the outside world, you need to be your only champion and you need to be the one person that is going to support yourself throughout your whole life. At the end of the day, you only have yourself and nobody's going to be as involved in your life as you, so you really need to start focusing on being kind to yourself, and not being judgmental towards yourself or other people. If you're not a judgmental person, you're going to not care about other people's opinions of you and then you don't take time in your day to judge another person.

On an app where positive and uplifting content is not always trending it’s exciting to see that people all over the world are positively engaging with your content. Where do you hope the #tubegirl selfconfidence movement goes from here? I just hope I get to continue to be that person that hypes girls up and that people continue to enjoy my videos. I hope to connect with people more and talk to my audience more and be able to share my experiences of how this has all changed my life and how I started to break away from that kind of mindset of you’re not confident. Or I hope to be a person that helps people in that way, and also do more stuff in music and fashion. I loved being a fashion girly at fashion weeks so hopefully I get to continue doing that and making videos for people that I love to work with. So that's what I'm hoping for.

I think being kinder to yourself is the first step, and then just stop caring what other people think, because at the end of the day, you're literally left with yourself and your own choices and I think that it's so important to be happy with the choices you make and not have any regrets. I'm lucky I don't regret posting that first video even though some people called it embarrassing and cringe, and it didn't blow up straight away. There were comments that were negative, but I just didn’t care about what other people's opinions were because they don't actually exist in my circle. If it's not the people you love, you really shouldn't care.

NYOTA Magazine STAR POWER TEAM

PUBLISHING

EDITOR IN CHIEF

CAROL WRIGHT

WWW.ISSUU.COM/NYOTAMAGAZINE

GRAPHIC DESIGNER

CAROL WRIGHT

HTTP://NYOTAMAGAZINE.COM

COVER DESIGN

NICOLE COX

COVER CONTENT CREATOR

Sabrina Bahsoon

CONTRIBUTORS PHOTOGRAPHER

Ahzam Ahmed

PHOTOGRAPHER

Fred Stauffer

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