Since 2015, SushiVid has worked with thousands of creators across Malaysia and the region. Between 2016 and 2024 we sat down with some of them for short spotlights and interviews on this blog. This page brings all of those features together in one place, so you can meet them again.
2016
Nisha Ezzati
When we named Nisha our "Maki of the Month" in 2016, she was balancing work as a tutor with a growing YouTube channel built around make-up and hijab tutorials, plus recipes, eczema tips and honest talk about internet trolls. She started on YouTube because her Twitter followers kept asking how she did her make-up and hijab. Her advice for new YouTubers: you can't satisfy everyone, so take constructive criticism, improve what you can and ignore the hateful comments.
Follow Nisha Ezzati on YouTube
Alyia Bubbles
Alyia brought a cutesy world of pink, cupcakes and Asian beauty to YouTube, with polished editing, pastel graphics and a regular posting schedule. She told us her most memorable video was one where she spoke in Korean, made in response to commenters who said she shouldn't speak English. Her point was simple: you can learn and speak any language you like, whatever your background. She credited her first 300 subscribers to a video on losing weight without exercise.
Hidayah A
Hidayah caught our eye in 2016 with her "20 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Was 20" video (which included the excellent advice "if in doubt, eat sushi"). She made beauty and make-up content with slick editing, tutorials, favourites and even Spicy Noodle Challenges, and her honesty on camera gave real credibility to her brand work. Her tip for new YouTubers was perseverance and consistency: remember why you started and don't give up.
2017
Luqman Podolski
Luqman rose to fame on Vine and carried that momentum to Facebook and Instagram with short, relatable comedy videos, often alongside his partner in crime Adib Alexx. In 2017 we wrote two pieces about him: one on why fans love his silly, over-dramatic persona, and one looking at his numbers. At the time he had 1.3 million followers at just 19, and our look at his 10 latest posts put his average engagement rate at 8.1%, well above average. We also noticed he only used hashtags on sponsored posts, which made his brand content stand out.
Follow Luqman Podolski on Instagram
KYOPROPAGANDA
Kyo got into video through parkour and parody, then started a YouTube channel at university making funny sketches and parodies of local issues. He told us he likes his content raw and funny, often unscripted, and that he writes the ending and punchline first before working out the setup. On sponsored content, his view was that people watch creators online because they're tired of TV ads, so branded content should be creative rather than look like a TV commercial.
Follow KYOPROPAGANDA on YouTube
AminEmo
AminEmo started out as a calisthenics athlete. After a shoulder injury and a slipped disc, he began making comedy videos on Vine, then moved to Instagram when Vine was shutting down, and later returned to parkour, futsal and basketball. He was also known for his edited photo manipulations, and told us that the way to avoid hard-selling in sponsored posts is to be creative with editing and captions. His dream brand collaborations at the time were H&M, Nike and Sony.
2018
Joanna Ramdzan
When we featured Joanna in 2018, she had just completed six years of medical school in Moscow while sharing hijab fashion OOTDs on Instagram and beauty tutorials on YouTube. Brands loved her for her quirky personality and the way she always replied to her followers. Her style tip: less is more, one or two bold statements is enough, and confidence matters most. She told us SushiVid helped expose her to brands and always checked she was okay and ready for each campaign.
Follow Joanna Ramdzan on Instagram
Missalvy
Alvynna Joanna Joseph, known as Alvy, is a travel creator who shares adventurous stories and tips for fellow wanderers. She told us the biggest misconception about her was that all her trips were sponsored, when in fact she worked hard to pay for them. Her most memorable travel moment was couchsurfing for the first time, and her advice for women thinking about solo travel was to take precautions but not let fear stop you.
Saffa Yusof
Saffa, known to her audience as "fayusof", did a lot of review work for small Instagram shops. She described herself as happy, organised and someone who never gives up. In our interview she pushed back on the idea that influencing is easy money: even simple reviews take real effort, and creators owe clients their best work. If she could change careers, she told us, she would be a primary school teacher.
Amirulee (Acap)
Amirulee, better known as Acap, is part of Sterk Production, a fast-growing Malaysian YouTube comedy group formed by friends straight after SPM. Within the team he handled marketing and client emails, as well as acting and camera work. He told us that when a brand asked for a concept that didn't suit the group, they would gently explain that their followers know and love them for their own style, and most clients agreed.
Follow Amirulee and Sterk Production on YouTube
Adrian Khor
Adrian is an energetic fitness enthusiast and street-style fashion fan from Kedah. When we spoke to him in 2018 he had just made his first Q&A video and was planning more fashion content and vlogs. His insight on influencer work: jobs should be matched to a creator's main talent, so fashion brands should work with fashion creators.
Mieza Suhaini
Mieza is a blogger whose writing she described as inspiring, personal and friendly. She told us blogging, and the events it led to, helped her build her self-confidence. She often shared song lyrics, quotes and her own poetry, and when negative comments got to her, she would write a poem to let the feeling go. She had also run a mini short-story contest for her readers.
Follow Mieza Suhaini on her blog
Shafyqah Azahar
Shafyqah is a seasoned Malaysian blogger writing about food, music and her personal life. She first started blogging because she admired beautiful blogs, and stayed because of the satisfaction it gave her. Her writing tip was to put yourself in the reader's shoes and write in a relaxed, easy-to-understand way. She told us she liked that SushiVid stayed friendly as it grew, and that cashing out her earnings was easy.
Follow Shafyqah Azahar on her blog
Shini Lola
Shini Lola started blogging at 16 in 2007 and began writing about travel in 2010; by the time we featured her she had been to 15 countries. Her favourite trip was a family holiday to Japan. Alongside travel, beauty and lifestyle, she had started writing about property after joining a real estate company, because she felt young adults had too little information about it.
2019
Cassandra Stephanie
Cassandra is an Indonesian performance art student who balanced her studies with YouTube, sharing make-up tutorials and singing. We loved her authenticity: she was open about her faith and happy to share her disasters with her audience. Her advice to new YouTubers was not to worry about low subscriber or view counts, but to follow your passion and keep progressing.
Follow Cassandra Stephanie on YouTube
Lissa Pissa
Lissa Pissa loves pizza (even for breakfast) and won over her audience with candid "Facts About Me" videos about school results, tears and her love of Nando's. That honesty made her a great fit for brands, and she had collaborated with Uniqlo and Hermo for #MYCYBERSALE, all while studying Urban and Regional Planning. Her tip for new YouTubers: don't make excuses about not having the best equipment, just start and keep experimenting.
Natalie Chai
Nat speaks 5.5 languages and has studied around Asia, but her YouTube channel, The Nat Story, is full of playful, down-to-earth vlogs. She first uploaded videos while studying in Korea in 2008 and started vlogging consistently for sentimental reasons, to keep memories of family and friends. She also appeared in the first ever SushiVid influencer campaign for Hermo.my. Her principle: focus on content before views, because chasing numbers can cost a channel its identity.
Nicole Yie
Nicole is a dancer and beauty creator who described her content as detailed, organised and beauty-focused. Although she makes videos, she prefers to stay behind the camera, using overlays rather than talking on screen. On reviews, she told us that if a product falls short she tells the brand first, and only publishes an honest, non-harmful review if they are fine with it.
2020
Nicole
Nicole is a model turned influencer known for her polished Instagram aesthetic. She told us influencing came naturally after she started modelling in 2016, and that her most remarkable experience was being invited to lots of events and making new friends. The tip she wished she had been given at the start: how to take better quality photos.
Pei Wen
Pei Wen became an influencer after a brand reached out to her for a product review. When we spoke in 2020 she was writing travel blogs and hoped to expand to YouTube, and she named Imjennim as her role model. Her best tip for new creators was to treat everyone you meet with a sincere heart.
Shin Ni
Shin Ni juggled her studies with influencer work and events, with an aesthetic inspired by Diana Korkunova. She told us she preferred to focus on one platform rather than spread herself thin, and her approach to haters was simply to keep being herself.
Wei Hung
When we featured Wei Hung in 2020, he was finishing his ACCA while attending plenty of events. Influencing came naturally to him, and his favourite part was meeting people from different backgrounds. His advice: be yourself, never compare yourself to others, and remember it doesn't matter how slowly you go as long as you don't stop.
Joe Shiang
Joe created his TikTok account in August 2018 and within three to four months had become an influencer on both TikTok and Instagram. At 20 he was studying design at university and hoped to become a model with a unique style. One honest insight from our interview: he wished he had known earlier that influencers have a market price, because he didn't know how to set his own rates when he started.
Follow Joe Shiang on Instagram
Kittie Yiyi
Kittie is a fashion creator with a funky personal style who travels, creates content and is working towards her dream of becoming one of Malaysia's biggest local designers. Her goal was to travel the world with brands, and her most remarkable experience was meeting designers, celebrities and the people behind big brands. Her tip in hindsight: video content matters more than ever.
Follow Kittie Yiyi on Instagram
Nur Nilam (B)
Nur Nilam, known as B, creates across fashion and beauty and told us she first posted just for fun because she wanted to share quality content. She described herself as a really shy person when she started, and wished someone had given her advice on building confidence. Looking ahead, she was interested in business and hoped to become a businesswoman.
2023
Afiq Nazary
Afiq is a business owner who shares financial and business content, and he told us becoming an influencer was never part of his plan. His aim was simply to share his knowledge and add value to society, not to chase fame or revenue. His advice for coping with price inflation: as a business owner, keep plenty of cash reserves, buy only what you need, and look after your mental and physical health.
Follow Afiq Nazary on Instagram
Blake Yap (Chinepaiyen)
Blake, known as Chinepaiyen, began creating on YouTube in 2010. At 17, frustrated that he couldn't follow his Tamil-speaking friends' conversations, he asked them to teach him Tamil, then kept learning through Tamil movies and songs and went on to make Tamil music videos. He told us he uses his platform to make inclusive content, show appreciation to the Tamil community and speak out against discrimination based on skin colour, and he credited SushiVid as the start of his content monetisation journey.
Ceddy
Before content creation, Ceddy worked as a marketer in creative agencies and live-streamed on Twitch as a gamer at heart. His vlogs flopped on YouTube, and he laughed when a friend suggested TikTok, but he gave it a shot and it took off. He told us he wants his dining reviews to keep followers properly informed and manage their expectations, and that his favourite clients, such as Maybank and Grab, trusted him to create content for his own audience.
Dr Syairah Nadia
Dr Syairah is an aesthetic doctor who never planned to become an influencer. She started sharing skin-related information on social media because she saw so much misinformation online and felt a responsibility as a doctor to educate the public. She told us she tried to share at least one piece of information a day, often between seeing patients, and saved more involved video work for her day off on Sunday.
Follow Dr Syairah Nadia on Instagram
Jean Bean
Jean quit her job as a Marketing Manager and moved to Mauritania in 2019 for her husband's work, where cravings for Malaysian food led her to start filming her own cooking videos. Her "it's your Malaysian girl Jean" intro began so local viewers would know she was Malaysian, and her recipes suggest alternatives so Malaysians of different faiths can cook them. Her first paid gig was as Le Creuset's CNY 2021 cooking show talent, when she had only a handful of followers.
Jia Le Woh
Jia Le is a chef who worked in a 5-star hotel before turning to content creation, after people kept asking him about Chinese cooking techniques. He told us he felt there wasn't much Halal Chinese food around, so he focused on sharing the culture and methods of cooking it. He also thanked his followers for bearing with his broken Malay and for helping correct his mistakes.
Follow Jia Le Woh on Instagram
Joanna Joseph
Joanna had been creating content since she was 18, covering health and fitness, skincare, sex education and more, and is an advocate for body positivity and mental health. Modelling was never on her list of career options, but after her fitness transformation and winning her first crown as Miss Selangor, things moved fast. She told us she wants to challenge modelling stereotypes and encourage every woman to embrace her body and chase her dreams, and she called SushiVid her favourite bunch to work with.
Follow Joanna Joseph on Instagram
Prestonles
Prestonles started as an influencer when he began his photography career 10 years earlier, sharing his work on Instagram until a social media agency signed him as a KOL. He counted photographing Tun Dr. Mahathir among his biggest achievements, and was continuing his stranger series, photographing people on the street and sometimes giving them a makeover. His tip for better content quality: study trending TikTok and Douyin videos for transitions, colour grading and angles, and use a professional camera instead of a phone.
Follow Prestonles on Instagram
Ivor Xian Z
Ivor grew up wanting to be a YouTuber but became a lawyer instead, returning to video during the Covid-19 pandemic. After experimenting with different content, in February 2021 he started adding voiceovers to set himself apart and focused on what he loves, exploring new places and food. His message to followers was to try something new every day, even if it's just ordering something different from your usual menu.
Aiman Rahman
Aiman's content first went viral on Facebook in 2013, when he was in high school, and he later reached the Top 20 of the reality TV show Hero Remaja 2017. Though not a beauty influencer, his YSL TikTok video hit millions of views; he told us he builds content around five elements (funny, facts, religion, tutorial and family) and uses trending songs, catchy ideas and the warmth of love and family. He credited the SushiVid team with bringing brand collaborations to his WhatsApp afterwards.
Iqbal Harun
Iqbal started out making short, funny videos on Instagram and was surprised when his followers kept growing. He told us he brainstorms ideas with his partner Ain Suhada, and that the key is keeping content clean rather than doing something silly just for views. When a client asked for a style different from his own, he would follow their direction until they were satisfied, as long as it didn't go against his religious principles.
2024
Pee Yong's Diary
Pei Yong is the illustrator behind Pee Yong's Diary, a comic that began when she drew her friend's story and posted it on social media. Her main character, Pee Yong, is a lazy brat full of weird thoughts, recognisable by her old-school hairstyle and artist hat. She told us her stories come from everyday life and that her ultimate goal was to turn the diary into a professional IP, with merchandise and brand collaborations.
Follow Pee Yong's Diary on Instagram
Want to work with creators like these?
These spotlights are just a small slice of the creators we've worked with. Today SushiVid has 41,000+ influencers in its database, across every niche and platform. WhatsApp us and we'll reply within one business day. Planning your budget first? Read our influencer marketing cost guide.
