THE rise in popularity of social media platforms has driven the continuous growth of the content economy all over the world. 

According to Forbes magazine, there are approximately 50 million content creators on social media sites like Youtube, Instagram, Twitch, TikTok, and others worldwide.

Of this population, Forbes said two million earn a six-figure income by generating engaging and interesting content on a daily or weekly basis.

While content creation may bring a number of benefits including finances, fame, and influence, there are also other adversarial effects accompany this new form of digital entertainment.

Since content creators deal and engage with a diverse pool of audience, not everything they produce would gain approval from their viewers. More often than not, they will acquire more hate comments than positive ones.

In an exclusive interview with republicasia, Gen Z content creator Neil Esteban, also known as “Pork Neilaga,” shared the spiteful remarks he received online and how he handled and recovered from them.

Meet Neil!

Neil Esteban is a 23-year-old content creator who primarily uploads his posts on TikTok and Twitter.

This Gen Z publishes a variety of videos on TikTok such as his daily grind at the gym, the outfits he assembled, funny TikTok memes, and other slices of his life.

@porknielaga

it is my right to have a better healthcare

♬ –

As of writing, Pork Neilaga has accumulated at least 192,000 followers on TikTok with a total of 13.9 million likes on his content, and over 22,000 followers on Twitter.

Worst hate comments he received

During an interview with republicasia, Neil disclosed that he has received several antagonistic statements since he started being active on social media.

At first, he had this belief that acquiring a hate train on the internet is a testimony that he already made it. Neil has always expected that he would be met by disapproval from other people one way or another.

“Nung bago ako mag start, ang mindset ko nun is pag nabash na ako, ibig sabihin I made it. So inexpect ko talaga na mababash ako,” he said.

“Pero okay lang naman kasi parang ito kasi mindset ko e, social media lang naman ‘yon… hindi naman ako masasaksak, parang I don’t really care being bashed,” the 23-year-old added.

This positive mindset of Neil remained even after getting distressing comments from strangers online. There were netizens who made awful remarks about his physical appearance and he even received death threats. But these didn’t seem to faze him.

“Sabi nila, ang panget ko daw, parang hindi naliligo ganyan. Tapos, yung pinaka worst talaga is yung death threat. So parang kung kinaya ko naman yung death threat, ano pa yung hindi ko kakayaning masakit na salita?” he shared.

Neil’s message to fellow Gen Zs

Be someone your younger self would have wanted to look up to. This is what Neil wants fellow Gen Zs to hear.

Since Neil’s career as content creator primarily requires confidence, he said that the best advice he could give to other people of his generation is to post whatever they like.

“Post whatever you want ‘cause you’ll never know if there is someone or if there’s some kid out there who sees themselves in you,” he said.

He also shared that he didn’t have someone he looked up to while growing up. This became his motivation — to be a person he would have idolized and identified with when he was younger.

“Parang growing up I never had someone to look up to, a queer person to look up to so when I started social media parang ang sabi ko lang I just wanna be someone that I wanna look up to when I was 15,” he added.

Learn more about Neil’s story on YouTube.