Meet Internet's 'Jiji' Vagmita Singh And Her Frank Takes On Everyday Life

Content creator Vagmita Singh never minces her words, she's everyone's 'jiji' (elder sister) giving it straight when it comes to dating, corporate life and family trauma. One of her viral reels gives us a sneak peek into what the year 2050 might look like for all the moms and dads out there. In her hilarious video, she hilariously imagines a world where our little ones have robotic BFFs, go on dates with AI partners, and embark on school trips to Neptune. Can you picture it? 

An introvert in her real life Vagmita Singh might not have as many friends but she is lucky enough to receive many reel peeps who address her as "jiji". She is one of the contestants of Netflix's reality show, Social Currency.

In an interview with SheThePeople, Singh spoke about her content creation journey, her shift to Mumbai from Jaipur and her work in the reality show. 

Vagmita Singh Interview

We read that you quit your job and switched careers to start the content creation journey. Tell us what motivated you to embark upon this journey as a social media influencer.

What motivated me was that I was getting paid 7,000 a month during the pandemic, and that was obviously not enough money for me to sustain myself. So I had to take certain decisions in terms of where is this career taking me, what's going to happen now. At that time, I actually had a job as a junior writer for a production house, and I thought, That's what I'm going to do for the rest of my life. Pandemic happened. They gave us all salary cuts because there was no work happening in the industry.

That's when I realised that if it continues like this, then I may be actually jobless or earning very little money for the next two years till the industry picks up again. That's when I put my focus back on creating content for myself. I thought that with all this free time that I had, I should use this creativity and channelise it into starting something for myself. When I made my first earning as an influencer, I put in my resignation papers.

Content creation is not an easy task. One needs to always stay on top of trends and strike the code of relativity. It can also get mentally toxic. How do you manage to keep yourself motivated during a hard schedule?

I decided very early on that social media is part of my life. It's a part of my career and it's not my life entirely. The problem becomes when you make it your existence and start recording everything, when you stop looking at your external world as real that's when things go downhill. So remind yourself that this is just a part of who you are. This is just a part of what you do, this does not define you. And as for trends, I personally don't follow a lot of trends because it's an easy way to get noticed, but it really curves a lot of your innate creativity as a person if you only stick to following trends. Some people do it brilliantly, but for me, I try and find new things to talk about or more creative ways of expressing myself rather than following trends.

From Jaipur to Mumbai, how did you look at challenges? 

I was the youngest in my family and above all, I was a girl. I was very sheltered. I realised that Jaipur would not be the best place for me if I wanted to pursue something creatively. So that is when I moved to Mumbai. First of all, in Mumbai, the first thing you realise is that nobody cares. And it is the best feeling ever because nobody cares what you're wearing, nobody cares who you are, how you talk, what you listen to, what you watch, nobody cares. And not being watched all the time by men when you're walking around is the most liberating feeling. It makes you feel so content and confident and safe. So Mumbai, of course, gave me that environment where I could thrive.

I came from a very sheltered environment, from a family where I was protected all the time to a place where I did not have any godfather or godmother or rich uncles and aunts. It's just you by yourself in a city which is merciless. I was so determined to make something out of myself that year after year there were innumerable circumstances where I was struggling and questioning my decision. But it was something about the city that made me keep going and keep hustling.

I have seen on your reels that you also advocate mental health.

There are ups and downs or there are really bad days and there are really good days, but overall, nothing is permanent. That's a good and a bad thing.

That's what motivates me to try and bring more mental health-related topics into my videos because I think even now in a lot of Indian households, mental health is a topic which is taboo, including my family, till I started talking about it.

Tell us a bit about your journey in the Netflix show Social Currency.

It was a very unique experience because I am a huge introvert. I have a very limited set of friends and I've always been like this. Moreover, I've been very guarded even in my family, and in my friend circles. I'm very protected and very sheltered. So I felt that in order to get myself out of my comfort zone. It is a very unique concept where we were not going to have our cell phones for a month, and we were not going to have our social media followers for a month. And it was somewhat of a challenge for me to see if I could survive in a setting like this, if I could hold my ground and show my capability and my talent to the world without any of that support system, which I'm usually surrounded by. 

I went in with the thought process that regardless of how the outcome would be like winning, losing, or everything aside, if I come out of that show as someone who is not afraid of doing anything in the future, I think that would be a big win for me. So that was definitely a very challenging journey because people don't realise that it's a very gruelling and tough experience to be in a reality show.

What is your advice to young girls who are looking to join the content creation industry?

Don't listen to people and especially don't listen to people who are not doing well in the things you want to pursue. For instance, if someone is in a very unhappy relationship, don't ask them for relationship advice. If someone is not very happy in their career, don't listen to their career advice. Most of the time our elders or people close to us, they love us and so they care for us and so they think that they can give us advice all the time. But most of the time that advice will not really align with what you want to do.

For example, when I wanted to quit my job, my dad kept telling me, Don't quit your job. Don't quit your job. You don't know what this influencer thing is going to do. Retain the job. Focus on that and then do this as a hobby on the side. But if I had followed his advice at that time, in his head, he was totally right and he was justified in saying that. But if I had followed that advice, then I wouldn't have been focusing on my platform. I wouldn't have grown it to the capacity.

Being a woman, there are 10,000 people waiting to advise you on things which they think they know better about. So I think just listen to your gut feeling and know when to not listen to others.

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