A Conversation with Chikamso

In an industry driven by curation, cultural critic Chikamso pulls back the digital curtain to expose modern celebrity, London’s creative ecosystem, and why remembering our mortality is the ultimate creative superpower. For our edition, The Unseen, we sat down with Chikamso to explore the invisible labor and deep philosophies that drive her when the camera turns off.

The Internal Edit and the Public Feed

To the viewer, a seamless cultural critique appears effortless. But the reality of digital production is far more meticulous.

"What people don’t see is how long it takes to edit sometimes," Chikamso reveals. "It’s not just cutting out pauses. A video about my left foot could take an hour to edit, and a video about the slow death of community, say, might only take ten minutes."

This meticulous editing process has also altered how she navigates her relationship with her audience, leading her to ditch the performative, polite mask many creators wear.

"I’ve recently changed which parts of my personality I show to the public," she explains. "I used to just be polite, but now when I’m annoyed I’ll say it, even if the source is my own followers. Getting comments that said, 'I’m surprised you would do this!' used to make me feel a type of way. Now I just think, 'Of course you’re surprised. You don’t know me!'"

Intent Over Algorithm

Maintaining a human connection on transactional apps isn't easy. For Chikamso, the secret was lacking a corporate blueprint from the start.

"I think I’ve managed to maintain the human element because I never had any intentions of making this a full-time job, so I had no reason to be anyone other than myself," she says. "When brand deals started coming in, I had no reason to change because the human side was what they were paying for."

This intentionality means prioritizing substance over visibility, even if it means throwing away guaranteed views.

"If I feel my intentions were wrong, I will take down a video even if it’s already viral," she asserts. "My followers’ favorite question for me is, 'What happened to X video?'"

CHIKAMSO’S CREATOR MANIFESTO

• Intent Over Algorithm: Never create just to fill space or chase views.
• The Bin Over the Feed: If intentions feel wrong, dump the video.
• Radical Autonomy: Preserve the right to be flawed, annoyed, and human.

The Creative Ecosystem and the Critic's Pressure

Operating in a massive cultural hub like London can be deeply isolating, and digital storytelling doesn't guarantee automatic alignment among peers.

"You will find countless creators who do exactly what you do, so you’ll make the mistake of thinking you’ll be best friends, but that’s often not the case," Chikamso observes. "One makes content for money, another makes content for fun. If they hide brand partnerships while you always disclose them, would you still want to be friends?"

Yet, a vital community exists behind the scenes, bound together by the unique pressures of the field.

"Despite this, we do definitely have community," she notes. "We bond over late invoices and parasocial followers. We give each other space to vent because only we understand what it’s like to have this job."

Being a prominent cultural voice also brings immense pressure to deliver immediate reactions, which Chikamso navigates by refusing to rush.

"The pressure comes when you try to do something you’re not comfortable with," she balances. "If you have a genuine interest in the topic and you’ve researched it, any backlash is water off a duck’s back. However, when you rush to be the first to break a story and get a date wrong, all of a sudden that backlash is real and deafening because they are right."

There is also the silent friction of managing audience expectations against personal boundaries when sensitive topics arise.

Sometimes certain topics are a trigger, but they don’t know that and you don’t want to tell them either. So, instead, you’re just left with, 'Why haven’t you spoken about this?!' and you don’t have an answer to give," she says. "When there’s a social issue that your followers want to amplify, no amount of 'But I’ve only ever made content about cheese!' will save you."

The Unseen Project

Strip away the professional titles, and what remains is a raw, profound empathy. At her core, Chikamso's driving force is a desire to alleviate human friction.

"I want to save everyone," she says. "I hate poverty, I hate homelessness, I hate that people are sad in their relationships. I hate that billionaires won’t just fix the world. I hate that people die without experiencing love. I hate that people die at all! At my core, I just want to help in any way I can."

The Ultimate Compass

This empathy is grounded by an unexpectedly liberating philosophy: a hyper-awareness of mortality.

"The philosophies that are paramount to my existence are 'Will I regret this later?' and 'Will this matter when I’m dead?'" she shares. "Remembering I’m going to die always does the trick. It makes me feel so silly that I’m spending time worrying if sending a follow-up email or a personalized LinkedIn request is cringe."

She uses this 80-year perspective to urge her community to take risks.

"When my followers ask me how I get the confidence to do certain things I always say, 'By remembering that we’re all going to die.' Because of [avoiding the thought of death], we miss so many opportunities, we don’t take risks, and we stay in unhappy situations," she reflects. "We all have 80 years max, and most of us are wasting our lives by not being as happy as possible."

Analog Roots

To understand where Chikamso’s verbal precision comes from, you have to look away from digital platforms entirely, back to her childhood library in North London.

"I used to go there almost every day after school and stay for hours," she remembers. "There was no greater feeling than rocking up after a long day of school and being told that my book was finally in!"

When people ask how they can build a similar command of language, her blueprint remains remarkably simple.

"I always have the same answer: you just have to read. It doesn’t have to be the big fat classics or an academic paper. It can be anything well-written. Just read."