Meet Tina Wong, a successful blogger/YouTuber born and raised in Hong Kong. Always interested in arts, she delved into fashion before finding herself involved with the blogger/youtuber community in Hong Kong.

Photography/interview: Lauren Engel

Did you like fashion since you were young?
I actually liked styling more. Since primary/high school I liked matching clothes then realized I liked fashion so I decided to study fashion in college.

Have you always been into art?
In high school I took visual arts as an elective.

What were you like in high school and primary school?
I was outgoing and I liked sports, such as running. In high school I did basketball and swimming as well and I competed in all these sports.

Were your parents always supportive of you doing art?
Ya, they know since I was small that I have been liking handcrafts. For electives I chose visual arts and they didn’t tell me I have to do history or something like that.

Are they creative?
They don’t do anything arts related. One does something similar to surveying and my other parent does accounting.

Do you have siblings?
Yes I have an older brother and he also does accounting.

Where did your fashion inspiration come from?
Since I was small I really liked arts and crafts. As I got older I realized that it’s time to start dressing up which was something that I really enjoyed doing and I guess this is where it all started.

Why did you decide to go to fashion school?
Truthfully speaking I don’t really like memorizing and doing exams. So I thought that this was something that I would enjoy more and that it´s more relaxing. I’m also sure that what I’m going to do in the future is fashion related.

You’re nearly done with fashion, has it turned out as you expected?
After I finished studying I realized I don’t want to do design. I think I want be a stylist because I like to match clothes more than designing clothes. I think being a designer is very demanding very stressful and you need to think of a lot of ideas and actually I’m not that passionate about designing.

Have you tried styling then?
I was a styling intern at Initial and I was helping them when they worked on the creation of their catalogues.

So what are you thinking of doing exactly after graduation?
I actually enjoy what I’m doing now. I am doing ‘KOL’ related work. I think that I’m not exactly KOL but I like to share what I like similar to how a blogger does it. I do YouTube, I like to take videos and use Instagram. To be honest, through this I get paid as well so I want to see if I can continue with this like overseas bloggers.

When did you start doing YouTube?
I started YouTube a year after I started Instagram. I’ve been doing Instagram for around three years now; bascially after I graduated from high school I started using it because it was so popular. I did it for a bit and then started realizing that I have a decent amount of people looking at it, so after that I decided to start a YouTube channel.

When did you begin to dye your hair?
I started dyeing my hair last year.  Basically I have always liked ombre hair and I thought blonde hair was really nice. After that I realized that pink hair is also really pretty. I didn’t really have the guts but in the end I tried it and the outcome suited me. Then I had more and more colours after that.

When you first set up YouTube what did you initially post?
I started posting more fashion stuff, only recently I focus on more beauty but I want my channel to focus more on fashion again.

How did you gain so many followers?
Actually I don’t know.  I just kept posting and more and more people started seeing it.

Other than fashion and beauty what do you want to do for your YouTube channel?
I want to try more travel related stuff, because I started to like going on vacation and there are a lot of places I want to go to. I really like to do vlogs and think the vlogs that other people do are really pretty. I really want to go to the US, Australia when it’s summer there and to Greece.

When you first started did you have any other YouTube inspirations?
The first person I liked was Christelle Lim. Followed by sunsbeamsjess and this next one I bet everyone knows–clothesencounters.

When did you start using social media to earn money?
I started earning money around a year ago and I was just following my heart. These days I’m also still not like I have to earn money out of this as my main focus.

When you were in your beginnings did the term ‘KOLs’ exist? (Key Opinion Leader)
Nope, only midway, an agency, asked me to sign me as  KOL. I didn’t know what a KOL was back then. All I knew was about being a blogger.

What do you think of the KOL term?
There are positive and negative aspects with everything. I think the term is thrown around too much so currently I don’t think I am and I´d rather be called a blogger or YouTuber. I don’t want to be called a leader or influencer.

Are you scared that since you are being called a KOL, lots of people look up to you as a role model?
Yes, sometimes when I go out people recognize me. I’m not one of those super energetic sociable people. The more I do this, the more I get used to it and know how to behave, but it´s not really my nature to be so outgoing.

How long do you think this KOL trend will be in Hong Kong?
I think it will work for a period of time and will then disappear again like most stuff.

What do you think will be after KOL?
Woah that’s a hard question.  I think it might just go back to the blogger term because this has existed for a long time.