Yurick Tchakounito on his journey to TikTok fame
Terrapin and TikToker Yurick Tchakounito posted up while in Italy (Photo courtesy of Tchakounito, from his Instagram)
As a young kid, Yurick Tchakounito was inspired to make videos by his favorite YouTubers. Now in college, he has over five million followers on TikTok.
Tchakounito is a junior computer science major at the University of Maryland. While growing up he watched many England based YouTubers like KSI and the Sidemen, which influenced his humor and style of content creation.
Bigyuyu17, Tchakounito’s TikTok username, is known for making creative and funny skits of random characters and situations. One of his top videos reached over 70 million viewers and gained over 8 million likes.
He had the passion for content creation for years, but never found the time to start anything due to a busy schedule in which he played the piano and took part in sports.
However, the COVID-19 pandemic struck and Tchakounito found himself with the time at home to pursue this passion. He decided to hone in on creating videos.
Tchakounito said it was a bit nerve-wracking to get over that initial hump, as he wondered what his peers would think of him
He would think back to watching his favorite YouTubers and remembered some advice they would give to encourage their audience: to take that leap of faith and ignore people who judge you.
Tchakounito internalized that message and said it helped him overcome the initial nervousness.
“One thing I really took from it was just being kind of fearless and not being shameful of what people may think of me,” said Tchakounito. “I literally just put my full effort out there and whether it was received well or not, I did not care about.”
During the pandemic lockdown he finally started to post videos without any restraint, and that's when things started to take off for him. For him it wasn’t all about the number of viewers; he was just focusing on moving from one video to the next.
When some of the videos started racking up thousands of views, content creators that he had been following and looking up to started to recognize his work and follow him back. This allowed for him to start to feel a bit of success.
“I couldn’t even leave my house but it was the connections that I was making that really helped me,” said Tchakounito.
When moving into college, Tchakounito met one of his friends, Samyak Jain, a fellow student. Now Tchakounito's roommate, Jain helped to film viral videos and collaborate on video ideas for the future.
“Creating content with Yurick is so interesting to witness. He’s figured out the formula for online success, so when he tells me his vision I just help him bring it to life,” said Jain.
Jain describes Tchakounito as someone who can make you laugh when you need it most. Jain seems to hold admiration for Tchakounito as he thought of him as ambitious and driven with everything he does and achieves.
“Seeing the video we worked on together blow up was so validating, even for me as the one recording,” said Jain. “I was just happy to be a part of something that made millions of people laugh and smile, something that he gets to do everyday for all his fans.”
When transitioning to college, he found it challenging at first when people would recognize him in public and yell his name, or approach him in a way he found disrespectful. He did not mind talking to whomever recognized him, so long as they approached him respectfully.
Now that he is a junior on campus, Tchakounito has figured out different ways to deal with inconsiderate people and finds himself to be more comfortable in those situations.
Overall, Tchakounito has realized that many of his fans are students at University of Maryland and he appreciates the people who treat him no differently than the rest of their peers and offer him words of encouragement and motivation.
“When I realized he was a junior at UMD, it was really cool to see someone from our school have some success,” said Jon Acosta, a junior kinesiology major at the University of Maryland.
Although he has been successful in content creation, Tchakounito doesn’t consider it to be his full time career. He wants to pursue a job in the computer science field, saying he values school over anything else.
After graduation he said he is not sure how much content creation will be in his life but he knows for certain that he wants the flexibility to spend his time as he so chooses.
“Could be content related, I could, you know, create a startup or something. But whatever it is, I hope that I’m working on my own terms,” said Tchakounito.
For now he’s making it his goal to land a good internship for this coming summer, trying to involve himself more on campus to open up more opportunities for himself.
“I've been taking steps and trying to join different organizations that can help me with finding a job, which includes networking more. So that's my next big step at the moment,” Tchakounito said.
Ultimately, Tchakounito wants to reiterate that for people in college, now is the best time to try something you’ve been putting off. He wants students to recognize that they actually have more free time than they think and doesn't want them to get so caught up in their coursework that they don't see the freedom they have at the moment.
Tchakounito wants people to remember to not let something in your life act like, “a barrier to stop them from flourishing and doing things outside their comfort zone that will ultimately make them a better person.”