Damien Broderick is one of Ireland’s biggest influencers right now.
The Dubliner’s Instagram following has exploded from 40k to over 1.2 million over the past couple of months.
The content creator also boasts over 937k TikTok followers.
Damien is best known for his incredible style, as well as his ‘Click, click, clap’ video intros.
The content creator launched his site damienbroderick.net in 2015; three years later he rebranded his blog to 1943.ie, which has had over 1 million visitors to date.
In 2021, Damien relocated to London to work for luxury menswear magazine The Rake.
The following year, he co-founded a subscription-based menswear newsletter called Raphoe, which aims to inspire gentleman all over the world and give them the tools to dress better, feel more confident, and unlock their potential.
Goss.ie spoke to Damien for our latest Up and Coming feature, who opened up about his content creating journey and how he deals with negativity online.
The Dublin native also opened up about his experience living with psoriasis, and teased the possibility of launching his own fashion brand in the future.
Find out more about the influencer in our exclusive chat below:
Q. How did you get into content creating?
Oh God, I think if you go way, way back in the day. It was back when you couldn’t even upload images to Instagram, you had to use the in-app camera and everybody was just sharing photos of like coffee and food.
I was just taking mirror selfies of whatever I was wearing to work that day, and I had I think 1,000 or 2,000 followers just from doing that. Debenhams was the first ever brand to reach out to me and dress me for an event. That’s where it all started in terms of content creation.
In terms of my current content [the ‘Let’s Get Dressed’ series] – that started a little over a year ago, so December 2021. So, those videos are only about a year in the making.
Q. Do you remember the first time one of your videos blew up, and what was that like?
Well, the first of my videos that ever blew up wasn’t fashion-related at all. Someone had asked me about tattoos, so I was just talking about my tattoos.
That was the first time I actually spoke in a video. Most of the time, I used some trending sound and I was doing really terrible transitions.
So, yeah. Someone asked me about tattoos and I used my actual voice to speak about the topic. That was the first video that performed really well – it was kind of a lightbulb moment, I needed to show more of me and my personality in these videos. That was kind of the catalyst.
I thought ‘Oh, maybe it’s the tattoos’ – so I started making more tattoo-related content, but it was taking up so much time. That’s an industry that a lot of people really care about, so if you say something that’s not 100% accurate they will come for your life.
So, I was spending so much time researching the meanings and everything else, and I just thought ‘This is not sustainable’, and fashion has always kind of been my thing anyway.
I decided to just create content on fashion. I get dressed every day anyway. So I just started filming getting dressed and talking through what I was doing. Everyone was doing ‘Get ready with me videos’ anyway, so I thought I could put my spin on it.
My videos performed well, and then somebody asked me if I could create a look based on a 1960s gangster-look. When they said 1960s gangster, I instantly thought of the Kray twins. So, I did a Kray twins-inspired video and it got 10 million views.
@damienbroderick Replying to @LighterPlugg #letsgetdressed #damienbroderick ♬ original sound – DamienBroderick
Everyone was commenting on that video suggesting other characters – ‘Can you do Harry Hart from Kingsman, can you do John Wick’. There were just all these mad different suggestions, and I was just responding to the comments and basically dressing to their suggestions.
That little series of videos performed really, really well. All of them were getting over a million views.
The format of my videos then changed. It was kind of a happy accident – like the clicking my fingers and clapping thing. I don’t record anything on my phone and I use a mic set up.
So, the clapping my hands was a way of syncing the audio in editing software, and the clicking of my fingers is a habit that I actually do when I’m racking my brain. When I’m trying to think – I click my fingers, almost like a stimulant.
I was doing that and then clapping my hands to sync the audio, and I accidentally forgot to cut it out of one of my videos. All the videos before this – the clicks were there, I had just edited them out.
@damienbroderick #clickclickclap #damienbroderick #letsgetdressed #menswear #asmr ♬ original sound – DamienBroderick
So, the one video where I accidentally left it in, all the comments were like ‘Oh my God, this thing is amazing’. Then it just became a thing in itself.
The shorter videos I’m making now, where I’m like ‘trousers, shirt, tie, knitwear’ – that’s because one morning I woke up and I wasn’t actually bothered to make a six-minute-long video about getting dressed. I just didn’t have the energy.
I wanted to make a video that day anyways, so I chopped it all down. I was like ‘trousers’ – didn’t matter where they were from, they’re just trousers. That video performed really well, and I think it was because I was cutting the video down from three minutes, when people were probably only watching about 60 seconds of it, to 60 seconds.
Now people were watching the whole video, and obviously then the algorithm loved that the whole video was being watched and potentially re-watched. That’s kind of the evolution of my content over the last year to where we are now.
Q. Do you ever fall into a fashion rut, and if so, how do you get yourself out of it?
With my personal style, the whole classic menswear, they’re all very classic pieces. There are no big logos or branding anywhere.
I find that I very rarely get stuck in a rut, because it’s so easy for me to get dressed. I’ve sorted my wardrobe in such a way that I could essentially blindly pick any shirt, any trousers, any jacket and they should all go together.
But Instagram and Pinterest are great for inspiration. I watch a lot of Netflix and Amazon Prime – I recently started watching The Last Tycoon on Amazon Prime, which is all based on Hollywood in the 1920s, which is right up my street.
So, I get a lot of inspiration from little things like that. I try to shop less, but shop better.
Q. Who are your main fashion inspirations?
In terms of Irish, I think Darren Kennedy has always dressed really well. Pierce Brosnan as well – he’s a Navan man, so we’ll definitely claim him as Irish.
I think he’s always dressed really well. Obviously he was James Bond and Thomas Crown. I think even now as an older man, I think he dresses impeccably well.
I think Matt Bomer always dresses well. David Gandy as well. I always go back to the people like Cary Grant, Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly – those super masculine silhouettes always look really elegant and effortless.
Q. You’ve obviously noticed your social media blow up over the past few months – but you’ve been a content creator for years. Did you ever become frustrated and consider quitting?
Yeah, a little bit. There are times when it gets stagnant and you think to yourself ‘I’m putting all this effort into my content and it gets zero attraction’.
It’s nice getting appreciation, but you have to remind yourself why you’re doing it. If you’re doing it for likes, comments, attention, money – they’re all pros that come way down the line. But, if that’s the reason you’re starting then you’ve already failed.
It took me eight years to rake in 20k followers, and then it took me 90 days to go from 40k to 1.2 million. If I had quit anywhere along the line of those eight years, if I had thrown in the towel even once, I’d never be where I am now.
There’s a level of perseverance there, but there’s also a level of me constantly reminding myself why I actually do this. I enjoy it. I enjoy getting dressed, I enjoy creating the content.
If Instagram and TikTok were to close down tomorrow, I’d still do the same thing. Nobody would see it. I’d still get dressed the same way, I just wouldn’t be able to showcase it.
So, if anybody is reading this down the line, just keep with it. Keep reminding yourself why you’re doing it – whether it’s to be part of a community, to make friends that have similar interests or whether it’s purely for the enjoyment.
All of the amazing benefits like getting to go to nice events, being gifted things, or people paying you to do something that you love – all those benefits will come down the line naturally.
Q. What has the reaction been like from your new, increased following?
It’s a bit strange. My friends in the industry keep saying ‘This is life-changing stuff, your life is going to change,’ and I’m like ‘…Is it really,’ and they’re like ‘No, it actually is’.
Maybe it’s because it’s happened so fast. Nothing has changed yet, other than signing to an agency that are now managing me and my career. We sat down and made a plan of where I see myself in 5/10 years.
Other than that, nothing has really changed other that getting stopped on the streets for photographs – which will never, ever, ever not be strange to me.
When people say ‘Oh, I’m a big fan,’ I kind of cringe a bit. Not at them, more at myself. David Beckham has fans, I’m just some guy who gets dressed on the internet. We don’t use the ‘F’ word around here. We can call ourselves a ‘team’ or a ‘family’.
It’s really strange, but it’s also really nice when you see people’s reactions and they say they enjoy the content.
I think people get a lot of different value from my content – some people like the ASMR aspect and they find it really relaxing, some people get inspiration from what I’m wearing. They want to update their wardrobe or they want to start dressing more age-appropriately. Some of them just need to find the confidence to that.
It’s really rewarding for me hearing the different values people get from something I find so simplistic.
Q. Irish content creators tend to receive a lot of hate online. You’ve been quite vocal towards trolls – why do you choose to address the negative comments rather than delete or block?Â
It’s hard, because I’m not some tough guy that’s ready to fight anybody. I don’t think I’ve been in an actual fight in my entire life.
But nobody would ever come up to me on the street and say that to my face because they’d be afraid of the reaction. It’s not just me – they wouldn’t come up to you, or they wouldn’t come up to any other Tom, Dick or Harry on the street and say what they say online, because they would be afraid that they’d probably get a punch. They’d be afraid of the reaction.
So, my stance on social media is why should that be treated any differently at all? This is my tiny, tiny little corner of the internet, and it’s my responsibility to make sure that it’s a safe space for not only me, but also my audience.
I see people leave comments, and then leave nasty comments to comments – not even to me! I’ll go at them, I have zero time for that. No one’s ever going to say it to me in person.
I find it really difficult to ignore [negative comments] half the time, because I feel an obligation to call them out on being an asshole, on being a troll. No way will I let that slide. Especially when they’re going after other people – come after me, it’s my content.
I have the thickest skin ever. They can say whatever they want and I’ll clap back. I’ve had DMs from people that have said ‘Aw man, that comeback was unreal. This is exactly how influencers should be’.
Then they apologise, and it’s almost like a virtual handshake and we part ways. Then there’s people that get a response and they delete their comment.
@damienbroderick Tiktok deleted the audio on this even though I PAY for a license from @artlist.io so here it is again with no music. Thanks TikTok 🫠🙃 #CapCut #dayinmylife #vlog #letsgetdressed #damienbroderick #asmr ♬ original sound – DamienBroderick
There are other times when I don’t have time to respond to a comment, because my followers have gone at this person first. I almost have to message that person apologising, and say: ‘Look, I’m not sending them, they’re doing that on their own’.
Credit to people that can ignore [negative comments], I just think it should be called out. The more it’s called out, the more these people realise what they’re doing and they might second guess the next time.
It’s okay [trolling] me, I’m bulletproof when it comes to that kind of thing. Their comments are never, ever going to affect me in a negative way. But, the next video could be somebody else, then the next video could be somebody else and that could affect that person in a really dramatic way.
But, if I call them out on their comment, they might not leave that next one. That’s kind of my standpoint on it. If I can discourage a troll from being a troll, even just for a minute, and spare somebody else’s video from a negative comment, then I think I’ve done an okay thing.
Q. Your following is still growing – is there a specific goal you want to reach?
It would be nice for my TikTok to go over the one million mark, it’s been stuck on 930k for a while – but I think that might be an algorithm change on their part, or I probably need to rejig my content on TikTok.
To be honest, if someone said to me this time last year that I’d have over a million followers on Instagram, if someone had said it to me five years ago – there’s just no way I would’ve ever believed it.
I’ve never set goals. When it was growing really quickly, and it was on 100k, I’d be like ‘Ok, how quick can I get to 150k?’ It was almost fun just like monitoring it.
I don’t say in my head ‘I want to reach two million by the summer, and then three million by Christmas,’ I don’t really think about it too much.
A lot of my friends will be like ‘Damien, you have more followers than Barbados has people’ – and that makes me ill. To think about that amount of people, I try not to rationalise the amount of people because it’s mental, it’s a mental amount of people.
@damienbroderick I can’t believe that actually happened. #damienbroderick #letsgetdressed ♬ original sound – DamienBroderick
So, yeah. I don’t really have a goal, more just personal goals. I want to move out and get a nice apartment this year, I want to start driving, I want to travel a bit more, there are certain brands I want to work with. They’re the goals I set, rather than a target of followers.
Q. What do you hope to gain from your following, is there something you want to pursue down the line?
One of the things that I love is the community aspect of it. I love responding to comments, I love responding to DMs.
That’s one of the reasons that I launched the newsletter. A lot of people were asking for super specific content that wasn’t as easy for me to make in a 60-second video, like ‘How do I dress if I’m a bigger guy, how do I dress if I’m a smaller guy?’
So, I have my newsletter. It’s almost like a blog – there are podcast episodes, exclusive videos, tutorials, blog articles. There’s a €5 subscription fee a month – that’s the cheapest the platform would allow me to make it, I wanted to make it €2 a month but they wouldn’t allow me.
View this post on Instagram
The newsletter goes out every single Saturday directly to someone’s mailbox, and all that content is in there. I’m trying to build a community in there. There’s a comments section and a chat box, and a lot of men will chat back and forth.
People ask questions, and I won’t respond right away but someone else will have jumped in with a solution. I really like that community aspect.
I think in the long-term, I’d like to build that up a bit more. I’d love to do events where I’d arrange for subscribers of the newsletter to go to a venue to sit down and have dinner and drinks.
Super long-term – TV maybe. I think all my tattoos might be an issue if I wanted to be an actor. The makeup department would probably hate me.
I think TV, but then again I don’t know what realm of TV. I don’t know if I’d be any good at presenting, I don’t know how quickly I could read a teleprompter, I think I’d make lots of mistakes. Football punditry? I don’t know. Who knows?
One of the amazing things about my following blowing up is I have been, and will be presented with a multitude of amazing opportunities. I can almost pursue anything that I want which is incredible, how many people get to say that they’re in the position I’m in now?
I’m so incredibly grateful to be in this position where I have such amazing opportunities. If I went to my management saying: ‘This is what I want to pursue,’ they’re going to be like ‘No problem, let’s put the steps in place to get you there.’ That’s an incredible thing, and I’m so incredibly grateful to everyone that watches me get dressed every day.
Q. You’ve mentioned that you obviously have a lot of tattoos – are there any that are particularly personal to you?
Yeah! My mam has always called me a homebird, so I have the word ‘homebird’ across my fingers. That’s kind of a special one.
I have a koi fish on my arm. In Japanese mythology, the story of the koi fish is that they swim upstream, and these demons were raising the level of the waterfall higher and higher to stop the koi fish from getting over the top.
One day, one koi fish, through his perseverance, got up to the top of the waterfall and went through the gates at the top. The gods then rewarded the koi fish by turning him into a golden dragon.
The koi fish represents everything in my social media journey. The constant swimming upstream, the constant perseverance and then the reward at the end.
Even though that tattoo is eleven years old now, its meaning is more cemented than ever.
Q. You’ve previously spoken about getting tattoos to cover your psoriasis. Has it affected your confidence?Â
I had my first flare-up when I was 18. It’s different when you’re a young man, you’re with a girl and you’re very reluctant to take your clothes off because you don’t know what the reaction is going to be, or you’re playing sports and you’re in a dressing room full of young men who generally taking the piss out of each other anyway.
@damienbroderick #damienbroderick #psoriasis #psoriasisawareness ♬ original sound – DamienBroderick
There were more confidence and self-esteem issues back then – way less now. Even when I had the worst flare-up ever, I continued making daily videos and I did not hide away from it at all. Not even for a second.
One – why the hell should I? This is a normal thing. Over 125 million people worldwide suffer with psoriasis to some degree.
Secondly, God knows how long a flare-up will last – I can’t just stop making content for months at a time.
I was getting comments like ‘Does he have chicken pox? Does he have monkey pox? Does he have leprosy?’ I would just comment back and say ‘No, it’s psoriasis.’
People are always like ‘You should use a moisturiser,’ and I’m like ‘Wow, I never thought of that. Let me just lather moisturiser on my immune system’ – because that’s where the problem is.
It was kind of just opening the conversation [on psoriasis], which was really important because it’s such a normal thing. I was getting messages from people all over the world saying thank you. It’s so incredibly rewarding to hear that it has an impact on people.
@damienbroderick #halloween #letsgetdressed #damienbroderick ♬ original sound – DamienBroderick
Q. Have you had to adjust your lifestyle much to combat psoriasis flare-ups?
Not really. In the early days, I had topical steroid creams. That’s what doctors were prescribing back then.
There are obviously lots of downsides to that – you can become addicted to them, you have to wean yourself off them, you might build up an immunity to them.
I get a lot of people asking can I suggest some dietary changes to combat psoriasis. I’ve spoken on panels about psoriasis and there’s literally zero evidence to suggest that any dietary change affects psoriasis at all.
I always tell people how dangerous it could be restricting your diet, because you could develop an eating disorder or an unhealthy relationship with food.
View this post on Instagram
All I did was try to figure out what was stressing me out, reducing my stress levels and then using a good moisturiser.
90% of the battle is accepting what it is, and moving on. I always say to people ‘Psoriasis is part of who we are, but it’s not who we are’. It should not dictate what you do day-to-day, and it should not dictate your life in any way.
Psoriasis isn’t a speed bump in my day-to-day, I don’t even think about it when my skin is really bad. It’s only when there’s a bit of physical irritation.
Q. You come across as quite a confident person –Â is that something that comes naturally to you, or have you had to work on it?
I find myself quite lucky that I’m not a very insecure person and that I am quite confident, but there is a little bit of conditioning that goes on as you get older.
As you have different life experiences, your confidence is gonna build up or knock down and you’re gonna have to do things to build it back up.
When I look back to when I was really really young and all the lads were in like Nike tracksuits and I just had no interest in any of that stuff, I wanted to dress nice so I was wearing like jeans and a jumper. I was never afraid to just be me.
That’s just been amplified as I’ve gotten older, like when I got a job and started earning my own money and I could buy the clothes I wanted to buy and I could really start pushing my style out there.
If you dress the way I dress, you’re inherently going to get some sort of comments – especially the Peaky Blinders comments. I don’t even have to wear anything remotely close to the show and someone will be like ‘Here, Thomas Shelby!’
I find myself a little bit lucky that some element of it is that it’s a natural thing that I am quite confident. It’s almost like a muscle, you’ve to constantly flex it, constantly train it, and not allow your confidence to be knocked so easily.
View this post on Instagram
Q. You’re known predominantly for your fashion content, but are you considering sharing more about your personal life online?
Yeah, absolutely. It’s a bit mad cause I think people are obviously nosey by nature, so I get loads of comments like ‘Can we see your wardrobe? Can we get a house tour? What car do you drive?’
There are aspects of that that I probably need to bring into the fold. I think that’s going to be the natural evolution of my content, to show more of me and more of my life.
That’s kind of what we want to do down the road. That’s sort of the natural progression. There’s only so long I can click my fingers and get dressed before people get bored.
I’m also conscious and wary of what I show online. The people in my life that aren’t even on social media or have no interest in it, I’m very conscious like ‘Do you want to be shown to 1.1 million people?’
View this post on Instagram
I could point a camera at anything, but it’s my responsibility to make sure that I have the people in my life’s consent to be shared to such a large audience.
It’s not as if I’m sharing it and nobody’s going to see it – it’s literally hundreds and thousands of people seeing it. So, I also have to bear that in mind when I’m posting on social media.
Q. Are you single?
I do not talk about my sexuality or my relationship status or anything like that online at all.
It’s not like I’m trying to be mysterious or anything like that, I just feel that it has nothing to do with my content, so I generally just steer away from it.
Q. Would you like to launch your own brand in the future?
Yeah, I’d love to. Last year we launched a range of ties which were limited edition.
I would want to do it in a sustainable way, and in a way that they’re good quality garments – not even just for the environment, but what I want to put out to people is stuff that’s of high quality, but obviously still be affordable.
I’ve had conversations with factories already, but one of the biggest issues is minimum orders – these guys are like we only take minimum orders of say 10,000 pieces. The financial issue there is that I’d have to pay for 10,000 pieces and then hope that I sell them.
Pic: Brian McEvoy
I’d absolutely love to do something down the line, whether that’s collaborating with a brand to bring out a capsule collection like Darren Kennedy did with Louis Copeland a good few years – maybe that’s how to dip the toe in.
Unless Alan Sugar wants to invest in me – I’ll go on The Apprentice next year!
Who knows, down the line. That would be amazing if somebody was like ‘Oh my God, that’s amazing where did you get X, Y an Z?’ And there’s one website, everything is there. Literally everything is there.
That would be ideal, but who knows?
