On this episode of Thrifty Titans., we have special guest Christina Furtado, aka Potato Face (https://www.instagram.com/potatoface), who talks about her love for illustrative art and how a viral animated video changed her life forever.
Christina draws inspiration from her childhood and enjoys creating content that is relatable to everyone, not just her large Instagram following. During our episode, we discuss Christina's shift from focusing on numbers to focusing on her growth as an artist.
The episode includes an inspiring story about how a small experiment with animating audio led to the creation of the viral video that changed Christina's career. Tune in to hear about Christina's journey to balancing creativity and brand collaborations.
Show us love!
Know more: https://thriftytitans.com
Share your thoughts: team@thriftytitans.com
Are you on Insta?: https://www.instagram.com/thrifty.titans/
Maybe LinkedIn?: https://linkedin.com/company/thriftytitans
YouTube? Come on!: https://www.youtube.com/@thrifty.titans
Share your feedback: https://forms.gle/4eSnbyMXQeWXAgc68
00:00:32
Saikat Pyne: Welcome to the U Incorporated podcast with me on this
00:00:36
Saikat Pyne: week's show. I have the pleasure of being joined by
00:00:38
Saikat Pyne: Christina A. K. Potato Face. She is one of my
00:00:42
Saikat Pyne: favourite illustrators, animators or creators on Instagram. She has a
00:00:47
Saikat Pyne: crazy following of around 730 k,
00:00:51
Saikat Pyne: and her content really covers a very broad genre, ranging
00:00:55
Saikat Pyne: from purely comedy videos to ones where she's really dialling
00:00:59
Saikat Pyne: back the clock on some slice of life content. And
00:01:05
Saikat Pyne: like most Indian kids, Christina has memories of visiting her
00:01:08
Saikat Pyne: grandparents and getting little gifts, and that's often
00:01:13
Saikat Pyne: the kind of content that she puts out. It's a
00:01:16
Saikat Pyne: vehicle for nostalgia for most nineties kids or anybody who's
00:01:21
Saikat Pyne: ever been a kid. Really Check out Christina's content, and
00:01:25
Saikat Pyne: it's amazing to have her on the show and really
00:01:28
Saikat Pyne: get to the depth of how she goes about creating
00:01:31
Saikat Pyne: content that's just so relatable. Welcome to the show, Christina.
00:01:37
Christina Furtado: I cannot imagine such a sweet little intro for me.
00:01:41
Christina Furtado: I was blushing the entire time and thank you. You're
00:01:44
Christina Furtado: so kind to say such kind words. I really
00:01:47
Saikat Pyne: appreciate it.
00:01:50
Saikat Pyne: How did Potato Feast really come about? What's the origin story?
00:01:53
Saikat Pyne: There
00:01:54
Christina Furtado: it is such a funny story. Actually, it was completely unintentional. Actually,
00:02:00
Christina Furtado: I remember I wanted to make animated videos for YouTube,
00:02:04
Christina Furtado: and that was my goal, and I did not want
00:02:06
Christina Furtado: to come on Instagram. It was just all about YouTube
00:02:09
Christina Furtado: and when I started to make long form videos because
00:02:13
Christina Furtado: those work really well on YouTube and at that time
00:02:16
Christina Furtado: YouTube shots was not a thing. So I made these
00:02:19
Christina Furtado: long form videos that took me around a month, month
00:02:22
Christina Furtado: and a half to create a seven minute video.
00:02:25
Christina Furtado: And once I put my first video, I realised, Man,
00:02:28
Christina Furtado: this is gonna take a lot of effort if I'm
00:02:31
Christina Furtado: doing it myself and a lot of time as well.
00:02:35
Christina Furtado: So that's when I realised Let's try Instagram reels. Maybe
00:02:38
Christina Furtado: let's just put a 32nd video on there and see
00:02:41
Christina Furtado: how it works, and that was my video.
00:02:46
Christina Furtado: I put that out and it blew up within a month,
00:02:51
Christina Furtado: and I cannot imagine I I still think of that
00:02:55
Christina Furtado: time and it gives me goosebumps because it was just
00:02:57
Christina Furtado: I woke up one morning and I had 300 K followers,
00:03:01
Christina Furtado: and it was my personal page that was my first
00:03:05
Christina Furtado: art content on my page. It was so funny. And
00:03:09
Christina Furtado: that's when it struck me like OK, I can do
00:03:11
Christina Furtado: short form videos, make many of them be consistent in posting.
00:03:16
Christina Furtado: And that's how I started putting your face. It's kind
00:03:20
Christina Furtado: of funny,
00:03:22
Saikat Pyne: but take me through what was running on your mind
00:03:25
Saikat Pyne: when you created, because I'm sure not every illustrator would
00:03:30
Saikat Pyne: have come up with a concept that was so silly
00:03:32
Saikat Pyne: but yet so relatable.
00:03:34
Christina Furtado: Honestly, I think at that point of time, I was
00:03:36
Christina Furtado: trying to experiment with as many types of ideas like
00:03:40
Christina Furtado: content ideas as I could
00:03:42
Christina Furtado: and for YouTube, actually, and I went into storytime animation.
00:03:47
Christina Furtado: But because not everybody is going to enjoy my story.
00:03:52
Christina Furtado: So I was like, What else can I do that
00:03:54
Christina Furtado: people would enjoy?
00:03:56
Christina Furtado: And I found this that audio on reels, and I
00:03:59
Christina Furtado: was just scrolling and I found this. I'm like, How
00:04:01
Christina Furtado: about I just animate this because nobody else is doing that? Everybody,
00:04:06
Christina Furtado: I don't think at that point of time, a lot
00:04:07
Christina Furtado: of people were doing animation on instagram on YouTube. Yes,
00:04:11
Christina Furtado: a lot of artists were there, but I was like
00:04:14
Christina Furtado: Let's just animate this and put my twist to it,
00:04:17
Christina Furtado: See if it works and just for fun, honestly, just
00:04:20
Christina Furtado: for fun.
00:04:21
Christina Furtado: And when I started and I guess it took me
00:04:24
Christina Furtado: around three or four days to finish that 32nd, I
00:04:27
Christina Furtado: guess it was 32nd of a video, and I put
00:04:29
Christina Furtado: it out. That's pretty much the origin story of the
00:04:33
Christina Furtado: just an experiment, you'd say.
00:04:38
Saikat Pyne: Did that amount of viral change anything for you As
00:04:41
Saikat Pyne: an artist,
00:04:42
Christina Furtado: it changed my life.
00:04:45
Christina Furtado: It changed every single damn thing. And honestly, I cannot
00:04:50
Christina Furtado: imagine how that unravelled in a couple of days. It
00:04:54
Christina Furtado: was just, like blew up and Netflix reaching out to
00:04:58
Christina Furtado: and Amazon and they're reaching out to me like on
00:05:01
Christina Furtado: my after my first video that was out. It was
00:05:04
Christina Furtado: insane because I think also because it was new at
00:05:07
Christina Furtado: that time. Brands also wanted to see an experiment with
00:05:10
Christina Furtado: that kind of content for that page as well. It
00:05:13
Christina Furtado: gave me the exposure that I cannot imagine what that
00:05:18
Christina Furtado: any other video would do because it reached like, 90
00:05:20
Christina Furtado: million
00:05:22
Christina Furtado: views. It might have reached so many other brands, and
00:05:25
Christina Furtado: my emails were flooded agencies were reaching out to me.
00:05:29
Christina Furtado: I wanted to be associated with them. So yeah, overnight.
00:05:32
Christina Furtado: It was a massive change for me. And that kind
00:05:36
Christina Furtado: of gave me the boost as well that I need
00:05:39
Christina Furtado: to take this seriously and maybe work towards building it
00:05:42
Christina Furtado: up and see where it goes. And yeah, that kind
00:05:45
Christina Furtado: of gave me that boost. Yeah.
00:05:49
Saikat Pyne: Can you still put your finger on what made this viral?
00:05:54
Saikat Pyne: Because I think creators around the world, we are always
00:05:57
Saikat Pyne: chasing viral, right?
00:05:58
Christina Furtado: Personally, I think a lot of people saw themselves in
00:06:03
Christina Furtado: the kid and they saw how real and how innocent
00:06:09
Christina Furtado: kids are and the way they speak. And they related
00:06:12
Christina Furtado: themselves to it.
00:06:13
Christina Furtado: And of course, it was funny, right? The expressions of
00:06:17
Christina Furtado: the shopkeeper to not understanding what the kid is trying
00:06:21
Christina Furtado: to say and that funny element to something nostalgic kind,
00:06:26
Christina Furtado: I think made it viral is what I think. And
00:06:29
Christina Furtado: one other thing
00:06:30
Christina Furtado: like I already mentioned a couple of times that nobody
00:06:34
Christina Furtado: was doing that. So it was like a fresh view
00:06:37
Christina Furtado: of content, and everybody was like, Oh, my God, what
00:06:40
Christina Furtado: is this? And that kind of blew it up, but
00:06:43
Christina Furtado: we are very grateful that it did
00:06:46
Saikat Pyne: mhm.
00:06:47
Saikat Pyne: But after the did you start experimenting with styles, or
00:06:53
Saikat Pyne: did
00:06:54
Saikat Pyne: the viral lock in the style for you?
00:06:57
Christina Furtado: Actually, I have been an artist even before. Like I
00:07:01
Christina Furtado: have had an instagram page that had around a followers.
00:07:07
Christina Furtado: I used to make comics like couple comics. Since I
00:07:10
Christina Furtado: started dating Saga, I started making cute comics around our relationship,
00:07:16
Christina Furtado: and that's a completely different story that still exists on Instagram.
00:07:20
Christina Furtado: That's where my art style started to develop up, so
00:07:25
Christina Furtado: all I did was just refine it a little more.
00:07:29
Christina Furtado: Of course, after a year of doing comics, I started
00:07:32
Christina Furtado: refining my art style. And then I put up the
00:07:36
Christina Furtado: video and that style stuff with me. I was like, Yes,
00:07:39
Christina Furtado: I'm all about the cartoony googly eyes, the funny expressions and, um,
00:07:45
Christina Furtado: the shadowing, the colouring. I'm all about it,
00:07:48
Christina Furtado: and that's how I kept refining it from their learning
00:07:51
Christina Furtado: because I'm self taught. So everything has been a learning
00:07:55
Christina Furtado: learning curve for me since the very beginning.
00:07:59
Saikat Pyne: So what were your inspirations when you came up with
00:08:01
Saikat Pyne: this style?
00:08:02
Christina Furtado: It is still evolving. Yes, because, honestly, I don't want
00:08:05
Christina Furtado: to stop. I want to keep evolving. That is, I
00:08:08
Christina Furtado: guess the that is the main sense of being an artist.
00:08:11
Christina Furtado: You don't want to stop at one point, but I
00:08:14
Christina Furtado: think the art style came up with a funny story. Actually,
00:08:19
Christina Furtado: a lot of people keep telling me that I have
00:08:21
Christina Furtado: a really round face and I have no joy line
00:08:24
Christina Furtado: that it's literally all this round. So I was. I
00:08:28
Christina Furtado: was making characters having round face, and then I looked
00:08:34
Christina Furtado: at my childhood. Not sorry. I looked at my childhood
00:08:38
Christina Furtado: pictures as well.
00:08:40
Christina Furtado: My eyes used to be bigger than my face, and
00:08:42
Christina Furtado: it used to look like really big for my face
00:08:45
Christina Furtado: and my relatives. My mom, my dad will always tell
00:08:48
Christina Furtado: me how brown and big my eyes were for my face.
00:08:52
Christina Furtado: I was like, If I'm making a character, I would
00:08:55
Christina Furtado: really want it to be an image of what I
00:08:58
Christina Furtado: think I would be in the cartoon world.
00:09:00
Christina Furtado: And that's how I started creating these big round eyes
00:09:04
Christina Furtado: and a round face and a small kid body like
00:09:07
Christina Furtado: the TV animation. Like the chi art style I got
00:09:12
Christina Furtado: inspired from there and tried to evolve it from there.
00:09:17
Saikat Pyne: Got it. The name Potato face. Just Was it something
00:09:20
Saikat Pyne: that was like an insider's joke within France or or
00:09:22
Saikat Pyne: it just came up?
00:09:24
Christina Furtado: It is not a very thought out name. It is
00:09:27
Christina Furtado: just because I look like a potato. And that's how
00:09:31
Christina Furtado: I name it to me because a lot of people
00:09:34
Christina Furtado: send me d and like, Hey, why do you name
00:09:37
Christina Furtado: yourself potato face? What's the story behind it and stuff
00:09:40
Christina Furtado: like that? I always consider my face to be like
00:09:42
Christina Furtado: a round a potato. I don't know why, and I
00:09:46
Christina Furtado: used to be like a big ass couch potato. So
00:09:49
Christina Furtado: I was like potato face interesting.
00:09:52
Christina Furtado: And that's how I name myself. No lengthy story, just
00:09:55
Christina Furtado: something that came to my mind one day, and this
00:09:58
Christina Furtado: was like way before when I started my instagram page
00:10:01
Christina Furtado: like my personal instagram. So it was not because I
00:10:04
Christina Furtado: was having an animated page that was going to be launched.
00:10:07
Christina Furtado: It was literally what I thought of my user name
00:10:10
Christina Furtado: when I first started Instagram.
00:10:13
Saikat Pyne: What's your content creation process? How do you decide if
00:10:16
Saikat Pyne: this is material that you could put out and what's
00:10:19
Saikat Pyne: your creative process Currently?
00:10:22
Christina Furtado: What I do is every time that I'm travelling, say,
00:10:26
Christina Furtado: or I'm just sitting on the couch watching a series
00:10:29
Christina Furtado: or something and an idea strikes, I write it down.
00:10:33
Christina Furtado: First of all, most of the ideas come back from
00:10:36
Christina Furtado: my childhood. Like, of course, I'm a hard core nineties kid,
00:10:40
Christina Furtado: and I've lived the most Indian life and Indian would live.
00:10:45
Christina Furtado: I'm from a middle class family. I have been to
00:10:48
Christina Furtado: the village to meet my grandparents. I've lived in a
00:10:51
Christina Furtado: town with my family, moved to the city. All the
00:10:54
Christina Furtado: Indian experiences, one an Indian would have and that I
00:10:59
Christina Furtado: inspiration from heavily from my childhood may be my experiences.
00:11:04
Christina Furtado: My memories with my grandparents may be my memories with
00:11:08
Christina Furtado: my parents as well. Sometimes I just call my mom
00:11:11
Christina Furtado: and I strike up a conversation back from my childhood
00:11:14
Christina Furtado: and we discuss, and then it's Oh, yeah, I can
00:11:17
Christina Furtado: make this animation. I can put it out there and
00:11:20
Christina Furtado: see if people relate to it.
00:11:22
Christina Furtado: And, of course, it's an every nineties kids' life, so
00:11:26
Christina Furtado: people are going to love it because everybody has had
00:11:29
Christina Furtado: those small moments in their life so Yeah, I It
00:11:32
Christina Furtado: it comes a lot from my childhood, like heavily
00:11:37
Saikat Pyne: So you go more relatable and more universal by going
00:11:40
Saikat Pyne: more personal.
00:11:42
Christina Furtado: Yes, there are far more very personalised ideas just for
00:11:47
Christina Furtado: me and my life. Of course not everybody are going
00:11:49
Christina Furtado: to relate to that. But sometimes when I'm short of ideas,
00:11:53
Christina Furtado: I put that out there as well. But maybe 10
00:11:56
Christina Furtado: out of maybe sorry, five out of 10 people would relate.
00:12:00
Christina Furtado: Maybe the other five would not. And that's fine. As
00:12:03
Christina Furtado: long as people have similar experiences. I'm not sure if
00:12:07
Christina Furtado: you've seen the video on my page where you know,
00:12:10
Christina Furtado: at night when it gets too hot,
00:12:12
Christina Furtado: you just keep your hand on the cold wall, and
00:12:15
Christina Furtado: that makes you so good. It is not the kind
00:12:18
Christina Furtado: of experience everyone has. People have air cons in their house,
00:12:22
Christina Furtado: and not everybody are going to stick their hands to
00:12:25
Christina Furtado: the wall to get that moments of, uh, chill. But
00:12:29
Christina Furtado: that's my personal, very personal experience. And I see a
00:12:33
Christina Furtado: lot of people. It has, I guess, 900 k views,
00:12:36
Christina Furtado: which makes me feel really good because there are people
00:12:38
Christina Furtado: out there weird as me who are doing these things
00:12:42
Christina Furtado: when it get to the
00:12:45
Saikat Pyne: That's amazing, uh, has it ever struck you? Now, with
00:12:49
Saikat Pyne: all of the success that's come and you have, uh,
00:12:52
Saikat Pyne: presently way more than 7 30 k, you have 7.
00:12:55
Saikat Pyne: 35 K followers currently that with every video you are
00:13:00
Saikat Pyne: trying to land at the
00:13:03
Saikat Pyne: and what does it do to the artist?
00:13:06
Christina Furtado: Yes, I know, Of course, when I put out content
00:13:10
Christina Furtado: on my page, I the first thing is my priority.
00:13:14
Christina Furtado: Is people enjoying my work? Always. I may be working
00:13:19
Christina Furtado: with brands when I try to, because brands come with
00:13:23
Christina Furtado: their own ideas, and sometimes it's not in line with
00:13:26
Christina Furtado: what you do and what your friend enjoy.
00:13:29
Christina Furtado: It's always the struggle of finding the mid ground with
00:13:34
Christina Furtado: them to see what works best for them and best
00:13:37
Christina Furtado: for me, and that marriage is important. But I think
00:13:41
Christina Furtado: it's definitely changed the kind of content I make. First,
00:13:44
Christina Furtado: I used to just make content for views because I
00:13:46
Christina Furtado: was like, Oh my God, this is something people will
00:13:48
Christina Furtado: surely enjoy And this is something brands will be attracted
00:13:52
Christina Furtado: to and come to me for.
00:13:54
Christina Furtado: But now is how social media really affects your mental health, right?
00:14:00
Christina Furtado: At one point of time, you are like you need
00:14:03
Christina Furtado: to make something that, um, you know, is for the
00:14:06
Christina Furtado: artist in you and not for people at one point
00:14:09
Christina Furtado: of time. And that's when I started the nostalgic series
00:14:12
Christina Furtado: as well, and I started. I'm not sure if you've
00:14:15
Christina Furtado: seen the tales of Chiku.
00:14:18
Christina Furtado: Um, yes, so that's how I was like, I have
00:14:21
Christina Furtado: to make a bunch of content that is for people
00:14:24
Christina Furtado: to enjoy.
00:14:25
Christina Furtado: And I have to make content that is going to
00:14:28
Christina Furtado: satisfy me as an artist that is going to keep
00:14:30
Christina Furtado: my art alive. So that's how I try to balance
00:14:35
Christina Furtado: and work a way that I can get work. I
00:14:38
Christina Furtado: keep people happy, and I keep myself motivated to work
00:14:42
Christina Furtado: as well. It's a it's very hard. It's like I'm
00:14:46
Christina Furtado: talking right now as if it's a piece of cake.
00:14:48
Christina Furtado: But no. At times you're doubting everything you're doing, and
00:14:52
Christina Furtado: it's a process. But I think
00:14:54
Christina Furtado: eventually you keep learning and then you keep learning as
00:14:57
Christina Furtado: you go. And that's what has been happening with me.
00:15:02
Saikat Pyne: We have been speaking about how to create content for
00:15:06
Saikat Pyne: brands that that doesn't put the brand in your face.
00:15:11
Saikat Pyne: And this is a parallel conversation. As a creator, I've
00:15:14
Saikat Pyne: had with so many of my friends who are creators
00:15:17
Saikat Pyne: about the brand manager again, not profiling anybody here but
00:15:23
Saikat Pyne: the brand manager saying, by the way, looks very nice,
00:15:27
Saikat Pyne: but he logo 20%. But I was. And we have.
00:15:31
Saikat Pyne: We have this amazing clip of the chief acting officer
00:15:34
Saikat Pyne: of O. M L. Going
00:15:35
Saikat Pyne: If a brand manager comes and says logo, though we
00:15:40
Saikat Pyne: as a company decide we will not work with the brand.
00:15:43
Saikat Pyne: So how do you strike that card? Because at some
00:15:47
Saikat Pyne: level they'd want to feel that they are on the
00:15:49
Saikat Pyne: hot seat. And as a creator, you would want to
00:15:51
Saikat Pyne: also guide them because you know your audience best. So
00:15:55
Saikat Pyne: how do you navigate that with brands?
00:15:58
Christina Furtado: First of all, I understand the fact that they do
00:16:02
Christina Furtado: because they are paying me to promote their brand so
00:16:07
Christina Furtado: they would want as much as visibility or understanding for
00:16:11
Christina Furtado: the audience that Hey, this is the brand and you
00:16:14
Christina Furtado: need to maybe get on board with it.
00:16:17
Christina Furtado: But at times of course, when I say that whenever
00:16:20
Christina Furtado: I create content, I want it to be as I
00:16:23
Christina Furtado: want my audience to enjoy it, right? So the coming
00:16:27
Christina Furtado: to terms with the brand that what should be settle
00:16:30
Christina Furtado: on a 20% bigger logo, or do you want to
00:16:34
Christina Furtado: lose on 20 K views? We need to understand that
00:16:37
Christina Furtado: we need to make sure the brand also knows that
00:16:40
Christina Furtado: this might affect this adversely.
00:16:44
Christina Furtado: Even after that, they choose to because, of course, they
00:16:47
Christina Furtado: have their mandates as well, like they have higher authorities
00:16:50
Christina Furtado: who have other expectations from the collaborations they've been doing
00:16:53
Christina Furtado: with artists. Even after that, they wanted it to happen.
00:16:56
Christina Furtado: Then they want it to happen. That is something I
00:16:58
Christina Furtado: need to accept. One other thing I realise with working
00:17:02
Christina Furtado: with brands. All the brands that I've worked with have
00:17:05
Christina Furtado: never really pushed me to do heavy marketing.
00:17:09
Christina Furtado: If, of course, if I'm trying to review a brand product,
00:17:13
Christina Furtado: that itself is set up about that product, so it's
00:17:16
Christina Furtado: gonna be heavily branded right, But say, for example, I
00:17:20
Christina Furtado: want coffee. They found that my page is about nostalgia,
00:17:25
Christina Furtado: and they were like,
00:17:26
Christina Furtado: You do it, you come up with your ideas. They
00:17:29
Christina Furtado: wanted their. They had a management that they wanted me
00:17:31
Christina Furtado: to be in line with the theme they're going with.
00:17:34
Christina Furtado: But I can explain it to them that what kind
00:17:36
Christina Furtado: of videos will work best and they trusted the process.
00:17:40
Christina Furtado: That's you have to be as transparent as possible with
00:17:44
Christina Furtado: the brand. So if you want, this might happen.
00:17:47
Christina Furtado: You give them all the outcomes, possible outcomes and the
00:17:50
Christina Furtado: ball is in their court and they would be like,
00:17:53
Christina Furtado: I would rather have 20 K more views. Instead, we
00:17:56
Christina Furtado: can compromise a little on that end, and that kind
00:17:59
Christina Furtado: of brings you on a mid ground where you can
00:18:01
Christina Furtado: make it work for your page and for the brand
00:18:04
Christina Furtado: as well.
00:18:05
Christina Furtado: And that's how I think. The Collab also worked really
00:18:09
Christina Furtado: well because they really gave me those the creative freedom
00:18:13
Christina Furtado: to do what I wanted to do. And if you
00:18:15
Christina Furtado: see those videos, you will see AC Coffee Cup
00:18:18
Christina Furtado: in all of the videos. So it is there, but
00:18:21
Christina Furtado: it is not in your eyes, and that's the reason
00:18:25
Christina Furtado: that those videos being brand collapsed, crossed like two million views,
00:18:30
Christina Furtado: and I think it's nice that brands are also evolving.
00:18:34
Christina Furtado: I really appreciate that as well. A lot of brands are.
00:18:39
Saikat Pyne: Has it got better with dealing with marketers? Has it
00:18:42
Saikat Pyne: got better in terms of how much visibility they want
00:18:46
Saikat Pyne: for the brand? Or are marketers still playing catch up
00:18:49
Saikat Pyne: in terms of integration, brand integration with content?
00:18:52
Christina Furtado: My personal experience? It has gotten way better as compared
00:18:56
Christina Furtado: to how it was because if you go to see
00:18:59
Christina Furtado: my
00:18:59
Christina Furtado: old brand videos, right, they are heavily branded like they are.
00:19:02
Christina Furtado: Maybe I'm trying to an offer, and it is like,
00:19:06
Christina Furtado: literally the ad you would see on the TV, So
00:19:09
Christina Furtado: it's not as organic as I wanted it to be.
00:19:12
Christina Furtado: But now if you go to see a lot of content,
00:19:15
Christina Furtado: the video that I made with Naturals is, well, natural
00:19:18
Christina Furtado: ice cream, all of them right,
00:19:20
Christina Furtado: so organic to my content. And it also is because
00:19:23
Christina Furtado: of the agency that I am with as well. They
00:19:26
Christina Furtado: are driven, and they want the brand to understand where
00:19:29
Christina Furtado: Christina and where potato face is coming from and what
00:19:33
Christina Furtado: the content was is coming from, and they want the
00:19:37
Christina Furtado: marriage to be as good as possible as peaceful as possible.
00:19:41
Christina Furtado: So I think we have I as a artist, and
00:19:45
Christina Furtado: my agency has also evolved in understanding and accepting. So
00:19:50
Christina Furtado: has the brand evolved in trying to give that liberty?
00:19:54
Christina Furtado: So in my case, this has been the story. But
00:19:58
Christina Furtado: I'm not too sure if that's the case with all
00:20:00
Christina Furtado: of them, but yeah, for me, this has been good
00:20:04
Christina Furtado: touch word.
00:20:06
Christina Furtado: I'm not I'm not doing any juicy stories. That makes
00:20:09
Christina Furtado: me realise, Like I've had straight calm experience here. No
00:20:15
Christina Furtado: ups and downs.
00:20:18
Saikat Pyne: It's so funny. But that's OK. This is not This
00:20:20
Saikat Pyne: is not Republic. We are not looking for breaking news
00:20:23
Saikat Pyne: here anyway, So that's all The nation wants to know
00:20:26
Saikat Pyne: the nation. It's OK. The nation is fine here.
00:20:31
Christina Furtado: The nation is fine with vanilla.
00:20:34
Saikat Pyne: The nation is fine with vanilla.
00:20:37
Saikat Pyne: But the other thing that I really wanted to ask
00:20:40
Saikat Pyne: you was there something that has been a bit of
00:20:43
Saikat Pyne: a trend in terms of the New Age digital creators,
00:20:46
Saikat Pyne: they really have their eye on success metrics, which is
00:20:50
Saikat Pyne: either YouTube stats or insta stats. So how key then,
00:20:54
Saikat Pyne: are you to the metrics? Do you track any metrics.
00:20:58
Christina Furtado: This question kind of makes me laugh,
00:21:04
Christina Furtado: because if I compare myself, if you would ask Christina
00:21:07
Christina Furtado: a year ago, I would be all about the numbers. Hey,
00:21:11
Christina Furtado: I'm always like tracking How many followers are dropping? How
00:21:14
Christina Furtado: many followers are increasing where the graph goes down and
00:21:19
Christina Furtado: the engagement on my heels and lights and everything on
00:21:21
Christina Furtado: that instagram jazz.
00:21:24
Christina Furtado: But that is so damaging for my mental health is
00:21:28
Christina Furtado: what I realised eventually because, yes, numbers are going to
00:21:31
Christina Furtado: drop when you're not going to have the kind of
00:21:34
Christina Furtado: videos that people would love. Yes, a lot of people
00:21:37
Christina Furtado: who unfollow you thinking that Hey, I'm not interested in
00:21:41
Christina Furtado: her work anymore.
00:21:43
Christina Furtado: And checking those and you're trying to make yourself you
00:21:47
Christina Furtado: You're literally showing yourself that Hey, you're not doing great
00:21:50
Christina Furtado: because you're looking at the numbers, right? You're making those
00:21:53
Christina Furtado: numbers really tell you that the work you're putting out
00:21:56
Christina Furtado: is mediocre. And the work you're putting out is not
00:21:59
Christina Furtado: up to the mark, which is so damaging to your
00:22:02
Christina Furtado: creative self, because then
00:22:05
Christina Furtado: you are getting into a creative rat. You are like, Hey,
00:22:08
Christina Furtado: what am I supposed to do? I am I supposed
00:22:10
Christina Furtado: to feed my artist? Or am I supposed to feed
00:22:12
Christina Furtado: the audience that is looking that is watching my videos.
00:22:15
Christina Furtado: So I just thought I'm and then it's still of course,
00:22:19
Christina Furtado: in process, right? I'm not 100% there yet. Like, I
00:22:22
Christina Furtado: don't give a about the numbers, but it is a
00:22:25
Christina Furtado: process of letting go. And what I do right now
00:22:28
Christina Furtado: is I try to compare my past work with my
00:22:33
Christina Furtado: present
00:22:33
Christina Furtado: because that is something that makes me feel really good.
00:22:36
Christina Furtado: The numbers aren't doing that. So I'm just gonna go
00:22:40
Christina Furtado: to a metric That makes me feel good about what
00:22:44
Christina Furtado: I'm doing. So I have grown so much in terms
00:22:47
Christina Furtado: of my art style, the techniques I use, the type
00:22:51
Christina Furtado: of storytelling I do. It has drastically changed from a
00:22:55
Christina Furtado: year and a half ago, and I am very, very
00:22:58
Christina Furtado: proud of myself for that.
00:23:00
Christina Furtado: And I think that is the thing people need to
00:23:03
Christina Furtado: weigh instead of looking at numbers because man numbers are
00:23:06
Christina Furtado: really going to bring you down. One day, they're gonna
00:23:08
Christina Furtado: be great, and you're gonna be on top of the mountain.
00:23:11
Christina Furtado: And the next day you're in the dumps because it's dropping,
00:23:14
Christina Furtado: and that really affects you as a creative. So much.
00:23:18
Christina Furtado: So I think I need to focus more on the
00:23:21
Christina Furtado: metrics of how my work is evolving.
00:23:24
Christina Furtado: And that's the best
00:23:25
Saikat Pyne: way to go. Got it. What has been the biggest
00:23:27
Saikat Pyne: challenge so far as a creator for you? So what's
00:23:30
Saikat Pyne: next for Potato Face?
00:23:31
Christina Furtado: Honestly, I want to be a bit more disciplined with
00:23:36
Christina Furtado: my work right now. I guess this year is going
00:23:39
Christina Furtado: to be the year of literally treating this as a
00:23:42
Christina Furtado: full time job and not a side hustle.
00:23:45
Christina Furtado: I wanted it to be as consistent as possible. I
00:23:49
Christina Furtado: want to grow as much as possible, not in terms
00:23:52
Christina Furtado: of numbers but in terms of getting a recognition from
00:23:55
Christina Furtado: brands trying to work with as many different kinds of
00:23:58
Christina Furtado: brands I can. Sometimes it's unusual how an animator who
00:24:02
Christina Furtado: makes nostalgic videos would work with a bank.
00:24:05
Christina Furtado: But how how would you? And then you know that
00:24:08
Christina Furtado: creative process of kind of thinking of how to work
00:24:12
Christina Furtado: with unusual brands that don't go in line with your
00:24:15
Christina Furtado: kind of work, but you still want to make it happen,
00:24:18
Christina Furtado: so I want to grow as possible in that direction
00:24:21
Christina Furtado: want to have as much exposure as I can
00:24:24
Christina Furtado: and hopefully start my own merch line eventually. That is
00:24:28
Christina Furtado: like every artist's dream. I think having their own merch line.
00:24:32
Christina Furtado: And I have always been very scared of taking that
00:24:37
Christina Furtado: step because it is so much of time and effort
00:24:40
Christina Furtado: and investment in terms of money as well that you
00:24:44
Christina Furtado: really want to take a well informed decision. So I'm
00:24:47
Christina Furtado: going to take my time, set my base and plan
00:24:50
Christina Furtado: that as well for this year hopefully end of this year.
00:24:55
Saikat Pyne: Lovely, lovely. And on that exciting note, guys, it's a wrap.
00:25:00
Saikat Pyne: Thank you so much for being on the show. Christine,
00:25:02
Saikat Pyne: I really loved having you.
00:25:03
Christina Furtado: Thank you so much. Honestly, I thought it was going
00:25:06
Christina Furtado: to be so much more technical and so much more stiff.
00:25:10
Christina Furtado: But by the end of this, I cannot I cannot
00:25:14
Christina Furtado: thank you enough. It has been so smooth, I wouldn't
00:25:17
Christina Furtado: imagine because I am very awkward when it comes to talking.
00:25:22
Christina Furtado: And especially you are more than me. I really so
00:25:25
Christina Furtado: thank you.
00:25:27
Saikat Pyne: Lovely, lovely. See you next week, guys. For the next
00:25:31
Saikat Pyne: episode of the U Incorporated podcast