From refugee to YouTube icon: How Noor Stars conquered social media – News

There is a girl living inside the woman named Noor Naem. And that girl occasionally pops up in a special way when we talk about her life as a refugee from Iraq, her childhood in Turkey, the dreams she harbored growing up in the United States. Noor Naem will be Noor Stars, whose reflections on daily life have made her one of the Arab world’s biggest social media icons.

It is clear from Noor’s journey throughout her life that she is shaped by her circumstances. “I didn’t have a normal childhood,” he says. “What people often don’t realize is that what you experience in your childhood stays with you.” In Noor’s case, one of these was the ability to feel vulnerable on social media and therefore not be afraid; It’s a quality that makes him relatable to his 60 million followers.

Noor is probably understating her experiences when she says life isn’t easy. Born in Iraq, he lived in Syria and Turkey before eventually moving to the United States. “I don’t feel like I’ve settled from my childhood to today. And it’s not a nice feeling. Any change scares you because you are reminded of all the traumas. This is something you have to deal with for the rest of your life. You just learn to deal with it better.

Noor says challenges actually drive you towards purpose. He says his goal as a social media star is not just to entertain, but to empathize with those who are suffering. He is often mocked by his friends and family for this type of idealism and being “too emotional”, but he totally possesses these traits.

Acquiring emotions at an early age also meant that a new medium had to be found to talk to the world. That’s when YouTube came in handy. “I discovered YouTube when I was a student in Michigan,” he recalls. “I discovered some British YouTubers and was very inspired by them. However, I couldn’t speak English at that time. So I started making Arabic videos. At the time, I didn’t even know there would be an audience to watch this movie. “But when I started uploading the videos, it turned out people were watching.”

One of the first videos, released nearly 10 years ago and viewed more than two million times, shows Noor talking about what’s on her iPhone. In another video, he is seen talking about the dangers of house flipping. Scenes from daily life that resonate with the masses. “I was very young when I started on YouTube. “My audience became my second parent, I grew up in front of them.”

As is usual on social media, with a lot of love comes a lot of hate. Looking back, Noor says it was the emotional aspect that people often tried to shame her for, but then it turned into something else. “At the beginning of my career, when I started getting numbers as a content creator, it was like, ‘She can do this because she’s a girl, and a beautiful girl at that.’ This impressed me and I wanted to prove them wrong. Then there was a period when I stopped taking care of myself and gained weight. I was still getting numbers. The conversation then turned to: ‘Why is it successful? He’s overweight.” From that point on, I realized they hate you because they want to hurt you. That’s why I don’t want to focus on the haters.”

As for her followers, she says the reason it resonates en masse is because “when you share your feelings, you actually connect with other people.” “Emotional people stand out on social media because you have to be vulnerable for people to connect with you. When I started, I didn’t know I was sharing my stories in an authentic way. This allowed me to resonate with people. I’ve also never been ashamed of my past. “I was honest from day one,” he says. “Being vulnerable, sharing your feelings, and being authentic is key to being on social media. Don’t share too much, but share something. It makes people trust you. They cannot trust someone who is mysterious or sitting on a high horse. But if someone acts like himself, people will trust him. Once you have the audience’s trust, you have won. “Not just on social media, but also in life.”

What Noor didn’t know was that this would pave the way for the kind of success that would catapult him into the top league. “I wanted to be successful. I had no choice. I would either be successful or starve. “I didn’t want to go hungry either,” he laughs. “My mother played an important role in building my self-confidence. I would go to him with the craziest ideas and he would say, ‘Of course you can do it.’ “I now know that my imagination is the reason I achieve what I do,” she says, adding that there are now moments when she asks her mother how she believes her daughter can achieve anything she wants. “All he said was, ‘I didn’t know, but who was I to break your heart?’”

Growing up with a single mother wasn’t easy at all. “But it made me stronger. I had no choice,” says Noor. “I have a feminine side that I don’t show very easily because I’ve always felt the need to have masculine energy. Growing up without a male figure is difficult because you have to learn to do a lot of things for your family. Thank goodness My mother was always there for me.”

The absence of a male figure during a person’s formative years also affects a person’s relationship with men in both personal and professional arenas. “You become more naive,” says Noor. “You believe everything. And then you realize, no, it’s all business. You tell yourself, ‘This person can’t do this because he’s like a father figure to me.’ The truth is: no one is your father. It’s a business. Everything.” It’s about numbers. The male figure in your life teaches you how to deal with other men. You start experiencing things that break your heart, and then you realize that not all people are bad and not all people are good.

The consequence of thriving in a highly competitive field like social media is that you never stop to examine your relationship with success. Noor says pausing is difficult because it requires more hard work to maintain that level of success (“I’ve seen many creators rise and fall within a year or two of starting the business. A lot of people work hard but they also give up,” Noor says). says). “I never stopped looking at my success until recently. I’m always focused on the next steps. People don’t realize that success is a byproduct of small steps taken over years. There is a saying: ‘Success is rented and the rent comes due every day’. “I really believe that.”