Up and Coming: Content creator Billykiss

Billykiss is definitely one to watch in 2023.

The 25-year-old, who is known for her incredible fashion sense, has amassed an impressive following of 69.5k on Instagram and 25.7k on TikTok.

When she’s not creating content online, Billykiss works full time as a quality analyst in a social media company.

Billykiss was honoured as Influencer of the Year at the Black and Irish Awards in 2021.

Earlier this year, she impressively co-managed her friend Dami Hope’s Instagram account while he was in the Love Island villa, and opened up to Goss.ie about the trolling she received through his account.

We spoke to the 25-year-old for our final Up and Coming feature of 2022, who opened up about her biggest idols in the Irish content creation landscape, her close friendship with Dami and her aspirations to launch her own fashion brand.

Find out more about the social media star in our exclusive chat below:

Q. How did you get into content creating?

Basically, it was years ago. When I was in secondary school – this is a funny story – my career guidance teacher suggested I start a blog at the time. She was like ‘Oh, have you heard of SoSueMe’ and I was like ‘No, I’ve never heard of her’ and she said ‘She’s a really big Irish blogger, why don’t you start a blog?’

I think a couple of years after going to her and seeing other bloggers, I decided to start a blog and started doing Instagram as well. So, that’s kind of my journey and how it started.

Q. Do you ever fall into a creative rut, and if so, how do you get yourself out of it?

All the time. I always look to reinvent myself, I always feel like I need to rebrand myself. I’m constantly reflecting on my journey, my style, my content and just always thinking ‘How can I improve it?’ I’m always consuming content on multiple platforms just to get inspiration – so, Pinterest, TikTok and Instagram of course.

Q. What Irish content creators inspire you? 

I really love Irish content creators’ work ethic and how open and vulnerable they are online. I think that’s quite impressive. It’s admirable as well, I think when you’re on social media it’s easy to conceal yourself and just show the best parts, the glamorous parts, the aesthetically-pleasing parts.

Overall, on a wide spectrum something I’ve noticed with a lot of content creators in Ireland is the fact that they’re all vulnerable and they’re open in terms of sharing their relationships, their bad days and their good days.

They’re all super hard-working. I love Sophie Murray. I think she’s super hard-working and she’s such a positive ball of good energy.

Q. Irish creators receive a lot of hate from trolls. Have you had any experience with this and how do you deal with this?

Funnily enough, there was only one time when I received a huge influx of hate. For black history month, I was doing a campaign with TikTok and for some reason, whatever way I said the word ‘credit’, I said it as ‘credish’ and oh my God, I’ve never received so much hate in my life.

I deleted comments, I didn’t know what to do. I felt like the more I left it there, it encouraged other people to comment and highlighted how I said the word. I didn’t know how to handle it, so I just deleted the comments.

I’m never one to block and delete people, so I’d rather delete the comments and try ignore it. I didn’t know it was that deep and they were literally attacking me.

Q. You won Influencer of the Year at the Black & Irish Awards last year – what did that mean to you? 

It means a lot. I’ve actually lived in loads of different countries. So, I went to university in England and I did a couple of years abroad like in Singapore, Spain and Belgium. Then I went back to England before I moved back to Ireland.

But for me, Ireland will always be home. To be able to be recognised where I consider home and where I started everything is really amazing.

I thought ‘You know what, I’m doing something right.’ I can’t believe there’s people at home that recognise me and appreciate me, that means so much. It’s something I’m really passionate about.

Q. You’re close friends with Dami Hope, and we believe you guys run a company together. Can you tell us about how you met and a bit about your business?

Yeah, I’ve known Dami for years. I actually don’t know how we met, I think we met through social media, that’s how everyone meets these days.

A couple of months back, my sister’s partner who is a DJ was like ‘I’m thinking of coming together and doing something for black, young people.’ It’s just an events company where people in our age group can have a good night and an eventful experience.

That was kind of where it started. Since then we’ve done some day parties, themes, a Love Island takeover and Halloween night. Hopefully we’re going to do a New Year event.

@billykissazeez 2 hot in the business #fyp #blackirish #fypage #ootd #fashionawards #award ♬ original sound – Tik Toker

Q. You managed Dami’s Instagram account over the summer while he was in the Love Island villa – what was that like?  

It was very demanding, honestly. I had no idea it would literally take up my whole life. It was like a 24/7 job which is weird because the show is only an hour long.

I thought I would only have to give like 5 minutes of my time. In the morning, the first thing I had to do was check his account, I had to be ready for when they released the previews for the episodes.

You need to make sure that you’re ready before with content and after with content. Honestly it’s very demanding, would not recommend to anyone. If your person isn’t loved by the audience… that’s a whole other story.

Q. Love Island contestants are constantly under scrutiny while they’re in the villa. Did you have to deal with a lot of people trolling Dami while you ran his account?

I managed his account with other people, so it was me and his other friend who managed his Instagram, and I asked someone else to help with the Twitter because I’m not really a Twitter-head.

We all got trolled – like us as account handlers. Initially, he got trolled when they announced his name because he had a nipple piercing. I don’t know why, but they were coming for him. Then they started trolling his Twitter account handler.

Then they started trolling us saying that we weren’t doing enough and asking why he had the least amount of followers which had nothing to do with us. Then they left us and started trolling him. Honest to God, people are crazy.

You just have to laugh it off to be honest. The trolling was based off what they saw for only one hour in the day, maybe he did something wrong, I don’t think he did something wrong.

You have to accept it like ‘Ok, this is what comes with the show.’ But it’s a bit sad sometimes. As his friends, we were trying to help as much as we could to boost his engagement and give him content.

But they we’re just attacking us saying that we were useless and that he should have a million followers. With the personal attacks on him, it was harder for his family to see. So, there was a time we just had to turn off comments on behalf of his family.

The thing is as well, Dami’s a bit weird in that he doesn’t mind things like that. He has a really thick skin, more than the average person. But just because he might not mind, doesn’t mean his family won’t. So, yeah we had to take precautions for their mental health as well.

At first it was really hard. From the moment they announced his name he started getting hate. The first three episodes he received a lot of hate and it was really weird. We were all like ‘What the hell is going on.’ But obviously, knowing him we knew it would turn around. It was an emotional rollercoaster.

Q. If you weren’t doing social media what would you be doing? 

I actually don’t do social media full time, but I do work for a social media company so I suppose it’s the same thing. If I wasn’t… hmm. The thing is, I always feel like I’m going to end up doing something with social media.

If not on the forefront, then behind the scenes. I would, hopefully, love to start my own fashion company, but social media plays a huge part in that as well.

Q. What type of fashion brand would you like to set up? Are there any brands you’d aspire to be like?

I really admire Kai Collective. I admire their brand journey, they’re a UK black-owned brand. The pieces wouldn’t be 100% my style or what I would wear, but I really admire her journey. She’s an influencer-turned-businesswoman as well, so I think that would be a really good example for me.

Q. What advice would you give to others who want to start a career in social media, but are too afraid of what other people think?

Just do it. Just do it. In this day and age, everyone will have an opinion and everyone thinks some type of way. But in the end people will first hate then they’ll follow. Don’t think too much about other people and other people’s opinion.

What do you want? Why do you want to do it? And if that’s what you want, honestly don’t let anyone else hold you back. Also don’t hold yourself back.

Take a listen to our latest episode of The Gosscast, where we chat about the biggest showbiz stories of the year. The breakups, the makeups and the most shocking celeb moments of 2022.