Sheffield TikTok star Tariq Wright (@lifeofmrt) has built a dedicated audience on his social media platforms.
It enabled him to leave his 9-5 and build a career on social media.
His success story began right here in the Steel City and he sat down with The Star to share how his upbringing helped shape him into the social media sensation he is today.
It enabled him to leave his 9-5 and build a career on social media.
His success story began right here in the Steel City and he sat down with The Star to share how his upbringing helped shape him into the social media sensation he is today.
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00:00So my name is Tarek, I'm at the life of Mr T on TikTok and on my social media.
00:05I'm from Sheffield, I'm born and bred in Sheffield, I've lived here my whole life.
00:09I left Sheffield when I went to university and when I graduated from university but eventually
00:15came back here and so back in my hometown and yeah it's my favourite place, I love Sheffield.
00:21So it's not a career I ever expected I would be in, prior to being on social media I worked for
00:27a building society in mortgages so a completely whole different field of work and I actually
00:33loved that job. If anyone ever asked me if I was going to leave that job to do something like what
00:37I'm doing now I probably would have said never because I genuinely absolutely loved that job
00:42but events happened and kind of it just naturally happened for me. The kind of way I got into
00:50TikTok and kind of social media being my full-time job now where that I started sharing
00:55kind of my life and struggles that I was going through with like my weight and mental health and
01:01I thought if I could just help one person by sharing what I was going through then it'll be
01:06worthwhile and before I knew it I started my account with you know zero followers and within
01:12a couple of months I was like got to my first 10,000 followers and then it went up and up and
01:17up from there and I was just like how is this possible like it's amazing people were just
01:21kind of resonating with me and and the content I was sharing they were kind of connecting with
01:28and I found my audience and they were loving what I was sharing and it kind of just spiraled from
01:33there to what it is today which has literally changed my life. The reason that I knew that I
01:37was about to make it work were that my income become consistent and it was just growing bigger
01:42and bigger and actually I knew it was going to be financially viable because there was a month
01:47where I earned my annual salary from my nine to five job in in one month and and that one month
01:53changed my life and continues to do so and it just continues to grow from there so people don't
01:58realize social media is a real job and you can make a lot of money from it and if you're consistent
02:02and you share high quality content and you find your audience of who connects with the type of
02:08content you create then then you can absolutely make it into a career and make amazing opportunities
02:13from it you know I had a tough time in Sheffield growing up actually especially as a gay male
02:17you know school wasn't the most pleasant experience for me with bullies and and kind of
02:23going through all of that and coming out as a gay man at that age in school and secondary school
02:29and stuff so I do feel that that has helped me grow the resilience that I've got today though
02:34because it's helped me kind of become thick-skinned if you like and you you have to be when you're on
02:40social media there's a lot of there's no filters for a lot of people on social media so
02:45you have to be thick-skinned and and kind of I think all of those experiences that weren't pleasant
02:50have helped me kind of shape what I am today and actually make me become a stronger person
02:57and that's been amazing but my school and kind of my teachers and and the experiences that I had
03:02there I'm still in touch with some of them you know they they've they inspired me and so
03:07everything that I do I just hope that I can inspire other people to
03:11believe that actually if they want to achieve something if they want to you know do what I've
03:16done or if there's other creators that people follow online where they aspire to be similar
03:20to them then it's possible like if it can happen to me it can happen to anybody.