Impactful Experiences

In the summer of 2021, I decided to start a fan page on TikTok for the viral sensation Hasbulla Magomedov.  Hasbulla is a 20-year-old with a growth hormone disorder that went viral for his antics within the UFC space and generally made lighthearted content. I started @hasbullahub mostly for fun at first, so that I could play around with the video editing app, CapCut, and gain an understanding of the TikTok algorithm.  To my surprise, in less than 3 months I had gained a following of over 200,000 with my videos regularly "blowing up". I created a viral account.  The content creation became extremely awarding for me when I read some of the comments "whoever is running this account is carrying tik tok rn" or when fans reached out to me to make a video edit for their friend that was going through tough times. It felt wondrous. Knowing that my account was the reason people would go on the app daily and the hundreds of positive comments made the experience grand. However, I had a lot of issues with the Community Guidelines of TikTok. 

After I had my first post get taken down for "minor safety", I made sure to familiarize myself with the TikTok Community Guidelines, and unfortunately, it was not enough. Although I had meticulously read over all the rules and potential reasons I could get posts removed, it happened more and more as the account became more popular.  Finally, the account was permanently banned. I fought the appeal and got the account back for a short time, only to be banned permanently once more. At this point, I decided my account was somehow flagged and decided to make a new account, @hasbullahub2.0. This account was also quite successful.

The second account had grown to a following of 215,000 until it was eventually banned, again, for seemingly nothing. I would get posts removed for minor safety, submit an appeal, and have the post reinstated. Of the 15 posts that were taken down, I had 14 appealed, meaning they were reinstated because upon further inspection, they did not violate the Community Guidelines.  Unfortunately, it does not matter to TikTok that the videos had been appealed and the second account was also banned. 

My experience with TikTok has been a rollercoaster of emotions.  Incredible satisfaction and joy of seeing people love the content that I was producing and incredible frustration with a nebulous entity (TikTok) that seems to lack any sort of customer support or reason.  But through it all, I gained a ton of experience. I proved to myself that my dedication to something can have staggering results and that something I am passionate about can be in-line with great success.  I learned how to create viral content on TikTok, recognize the importance of following trends, and how to grab a viewer's attention.  I learned how to interact with my community and other creators that aligned with my sense of humor and beliefs in order to build a stronger online presence.  It taught me how to closely track an entity and update my following on content that I deemed necessary to see and I learned how to edit short-form videos quickly and effectively with tools like CapCut and AfterEffects. 

Over my two accounts, I had amassed over 600,000 followers, 25,000,000 likes, close to 1,000,000,000 total views, and high fan engagement through comments and shares.