Influencer Disarming Female Stereotypes
A shy girl, she had no plan to be a social media influencer but a random video went viral and she now uses her unintended platform to bust cultural stereotypes.
FAMILY BACKGROUND
JF was born into a family whose ethnicity is Somali, whose citizenship is American, whose skin color is brown and whose religion is Muslim. JF wears a head covering called a ‘hijab’ in observance of her Muslim faith.
CHILDHOOD DREAM OF AN ADULT CAREER
JF enjoyed playing basketball from the time she first bounced one. She wanted to play professionally but who would be her role model for such a future? Other parents within her Boston based Somali community, used to complain to JF’s mother: “Why are you permitting your daughter to play sports and run with boys?” It was not until the 8th grade that JF’s mother, yielding to JF’s sports’ passion, let her play on a community organized team.
EDUCATION
Following high school graduation, JF enrolled in a small college, where she was a starter on the women’s basketball team, which plays in a Division III league. A serious student, JF earned her MBA (Masters in Business Administration) which will be useful after her athletic career is completed.
INTERNET FAME WAS NOT AN EARLY GOAL
When JF was 17, her cousin uploaded a four second clip of JF playing basketball. For JF, it was a routine play: a smooth but nifty, left-handed drive through a crowd of boy defenders. But within the world of social media, it was unusual to see a girl wearing a head covering, playing – successfully – against boys.
The next morning, JF watched, amazed, as the view count on the video exploded beyond her expectations, which were none at the time. JF modestly thought to herself “Ok, my playing an American game as a Muslim girl shouldn’t be a big surprise to so many people; I’ll keep posting so more people get used to my style of play.”
JF, still essentially a private, shy person, occasionally posted new videos and photos while still a full-time college student, playing in a competitive basketball league. Newer videos demonstrated both her cultural heritage and her athletic talent: while wearing a head covering and a pair of Nike basketball shoes, JF dribbles behind her back, pulls up at the 3-point arc and drains a jumper.
Within a few months, JF had hundreds of thousands of followers, initially from the Somali and Muslim communities worldwide but now many more from the larger world communities of varied ethnicities, citizenships, and religions. The rapper Drake followed her, and she was sometimes recognized off court, asked for photos and autographs, while walking through her hometown area, Boston, Massachusetts.
A video filmed on the Boston Celtics’ home court (with its famous parquet floor) during the Muslim holiday of Ramadan, pushed JF’s followers over the one million mark on Instagram. Today, she has more Instagram followers than all but two Celtic players!
FUTURE PLAN AS AN ATHLETE
JF is obviously a skilled athlete, leading her college team in scoring last season while playing as a graduate student. She is now a member of the female Somali national basketball team. She hopes to someday play professionally in Sweden or Turkey. (Editor’s note – or perhaps staying in the USA to play in the WNBA?)
FUTURE PLANS AS AN INFLUENCER
JF is working with a social media manager, who “gently prods” her to make more ‘content’, which could yield advertising revenue. The manager has other clients making seven figures (at least $1,000,000) a year from sponsorships and advertising, but JF remains undecided about how much time to devote to making money instead of training to play basketball and possibly interning in a business toward a career after athletics.
JF wants to continue increasing people’s views of her as a Muslim woman playing (well) an American game, to serve as a role model for girls of all backgrounds, especially Muslim, to embody something she never saw as a child. So, JF created a non-profit business to host basketball events for Somali and Muslim girls. Her most recent event drew about 75 girls from across the U.S., who paid nothing to attend and received sneakers from Puma, a sponsor.
JF vows to never forget the old tension within her ethnic community, which was initially opposed to her playing sports, especially against boys. She wants people to keep being surprised by her – “until the sight of a girl in a hijab swishing a step-back 3 isn’t surprising anymore.”
Meanwhile, JF continues to try to balance her parallel careers: (1) as an unplanned ‘Influencer’ determined to reduce cultural stereotypes and (2) as a professional athlete who eventually must transition to a career off the basketball court.
(The above story was based on an article by Andrew Keh, within the NY Times on 8-22-22.)
Editor’s note – A ‘social media influencer’ must realistically assess how long she or he can continue to bring new content to their personal platform to maintain and hopefully expand interest in whatever they are selling or promoting as an idea or a product. If long term follower interest is not reasonably likely, it would be smart for the influencer to pursue a ‘Plan B’ career.
Not all influencers need to earn money to consider themselves a ‘success.’ Some, like JF, are rewarded in non-monetary ways by helping others to be accepted for whoever they are and gain self confidence to pursue their own career dreams. Concurrently, the influencer can be working toward an interesting, financially stable, career.
