Belarusian fashion bloggers tell. How are you? Belarusian fashion bloggers tell the story The most popular Belarusian blogger

1. Andrey Shavel and HappyTown | LaGGeRFeeD (160,952 and 1,446,501 subscribers)

Andrey Shavel is an 18-year-old guy from Lida (Grodno region). At his age, he has already become the most popular Belarusian blogger on YouTube.

Andrey has two channels. On one, he discusses various topics, publishes reviews of funny videos and shows his daily life. And a personal channel - Andrey started it at the end of 2013, but the number of subscribers today is almost 170 thousand.

On the main channel called “HappyTown | LaGGeRFeeD”, which has almost one and a half million subscribers, Andrey publishes videos dedicated to computer game Minecraft: walkthroughs of maps in Minecraft, games in survival/adventure mode, reviews of mods for Minecraft.

According to socialblade.com, a blogger's annual income can range from $48,000 to $773,000.

2. IdiotikShow (457,031 subscribers)

At one time, many young people picked up the idea of the American show “Jackass” and began making similar videos. So the Belarusian guys decided to take a risk.

Tricks, dark humor, experiments on yourself and your body - this is how they describe their channel, which was created in 2012, although the bloggers themselves claim that the show began filming in 2008.

The most popular video on the channel was the one in which they drink someone else’s saliva.

3. Masyaka Grand (826,048 subscribers)

Masyaka Grand, or Sanya Mover, is the second most popular blogger from Belarus.

The content of his channel consists of video streams for the computer games Minecraft, GTA 5, SAMP. Sanya created an account in 2012, and today he has already monetized it and is making money.

At one time, the video blogger became famous for trolling schoolchildren in online games. He gained their trust, and then cruelly deceived them.

4. Katya Kozlovskaya (3205 subscribers)

Despite the fact that Ekaterina started a video blog in June 2015, she already has three thousand subscribers. The fact is that the portal kufar.by became interested in her fashion reviews and they helped the young blogger get promoted on YouTube.

Ekaterina lives in Minsk, she is a student at the Academy of Arts, and worked at the Belteleradiocompany. And last year I decided to start my own blog on YouTube - the program “Fashionable Scarves”, where I tell you how best to dress and what to wear to this or that event. Some videos receive up to one hundred thousand views.

One of the most popular was an issue about embroidered shirts, national costume and ornaments. Katya conducted it in Belarusian.

5. JTsmok (613 subscribers)

The youngest Belarusian-speaking video blogger.

A video about “egg language” has gone viral in popular Belarusian groups, and Ivan himself strives to promote the Belarusian language wherever possible.

The channel was registered at the beginning of 2015, and the videos average from 500 to 1800 views. The most popular is the episode “Minsk naadvarot”, where everything in Minsk moves in the opposite direction.

6. Cola Aglada (293 subscribers)

In every country there are bloggers who run YouTube channels with reviews of films, music albums, games, etc. Now Belarus is no exception - three young people have launched a blog with such content in Belarusian. They do not claim to have expert opinions, but simply express their thoughts.

The channel was created at the end of 2015. It’s clear that the guys got down to business with responsibility.

The most popular video on the channel was a review of the Belarusian action film “We, Brothers.”

7. Dima Ermuzevich (553,343 subscribers)

18-year-old Dima is the idol of his fans, but, unfortunately, most of them live in Russia. In 2011, Dima had a personal channel on which he posted entertaining content, where he talked in detail about his life and danced with friends. Today Dimina’s videos receive 200 and 500 thousand views, and the blogger has remained faithful to his format. And the video of the Belarusian blogger that has received the most views is his dancing at home in front of the camera.

8. Yulia Godunova (171,575 subscribers)

Yulia Godunova is a blogger from Yelsk (a city in the Gomel region). The content is similar to Dimin, which is not surprising, because they are friends and sometimes even film together.

Yulia studies at the Faculty of International Relations at BSU, and films her video about her personal and student life in the dormitory. In addition, the video blogger from time to time arranges shows of clothing items she has purchased.

The Yulin channel appeared relatively recently - in January 2012. Her videos get between 65 and 180 thousand views. The most popular was an entertaining video in which Julia answers fans’ questions together with Dima Ermuzevich.

, on Russian Youtube the formula “a thousand dollars for one million impressions” works. TUT.BY compiled a list of the 10 most popular Belarusian blogs on Youtube and calculated the theoretically possible income of channel authors.

During the analysis, we used the American analytical service Socialblade and the Russian-language service VSP Stats. Both services display the approximate income of bloggers if they entered into a partnership contract with Youtube and complied with all the rules for using the site.

1. Happy Town | LaGGeRFeed

The most popular Belarusian youtube channel, which has over one million subscribers. The channel was created by 18-year-old Lida resident Andrey Shavel and is dedicated to the popular computer game Minecraft. In less than three years, videos of Shavel playing games have been viewed nearly 212 million times.

According to VSP Stats, in 30 days the channel could earn from 17.3 to 21.6 thousand dollars. And according to Socialblade, the author’s annual income from ad impressions could range from 45.5 to 728.2 thousand dollars.

Behind the channel, where you can see how the author “will play various games, have fun alone or play online games with friends,” is followed by more than 700 thousand people. The channel was created by a Minsk resident in October 2012 and in almost 3 years gained about 70 million views.

VSP Stats: for 30 days 5.5 - 6.9 thousand dollars.

Socialblade: per year 6.3 - 100.5 thousand dollars.

3. Dima Ermuzevich

Ermuzevich is the author of the most popular Belarusian personal vlog on Youtube. Since 2011, the number of fans of his videos has increased to 380 thousand, another 150 thousand follow his page on VKontakte, 232 thousand follow Instagram and more than 70 thousand read his Twitter. At the beginning of this year, for a large number Youtube subscribers presented the 17-year-old blogger with the Silver Button. According to Ermuzevich, the average age of fans of his videos is from 13 to 18 years old, and most of the views come from Russia.

VSP Stats: for 30 days 128 - 160 dollars.

Socialblade: per year 5.0 - 80.2 thousand dollars.

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Belarusian version of the American show “Jackass”. “The video mainly consists of dangerous stunts, elements of black humor, experiments on oneself and one’s body. Everything that happens on the set is done voluntarily, with a sober awareness of what is happening. All stunts were performed by professionals and with a lot of experience,” the description says. Channel was registered on November 20, 2012 and during this time received more than 48 million views with 360 thousand subscribers.

VSP Stats: for 30 days 204 - 255 dollars.

Socialblade: per year 7.6 - 121.2 thousand dollars.

First Belarusian channel who became Youtube partner. The main content topics are lifestyle and entertainment. The channel has published episodes of several projects, including “Club Touch” and “BATE On Air”. Over the four years of its existence, 178 thousand viewers subscribed to Potato Republic, and in total the videos received more than 24 million views.

VSP Stats: for 30 days 1.9 - 2.4 thousand dollars.

Socialblade: for the year 2-32.9 thousand dollars.

Channel dedicated to the direction of trance music. The creators regularly publish audio collections; over 4 years they have collected more than 34 million video views and more than 143 thousand subscribers. Considering the strict requirements of the Youtube administration regarding copyrights, channel owners are unlikely to be able to monetize their hobby through one of affiliate programs.

VSP Stats: for 30 days 2.8 - 3.4 thousand dollars.

Socialblade: per year 5.5 - 87.9 thousand dollars.

7. Andrey Shavel

Private youtube - blog the author of the most popular Belarusian channel Happy Town|LaGGeRFeed, in which Shavel talks about his everyday life. In a year and a half, 139 thousand people subscribed to the channel.

VSP Stats: in 30 days 838 - 1 thousand dollars.

Socialblade: for the year 1 - 16.6 thousand dollars.

About the state of Belarusian fashion blogs, commerce, “edgy” content, criticism and much more.

Who are they

The first fashion bloggers appeared in Belarus almost 10 years ago. Many of them have long since moved to other areas, and new ones have taken their place. Victoria Naumova (former editor of Fashion Collection, creator of the Big Fashion Market and the BFM Box project) was one of the first fashion bloggers in Belarus, vickyblog.com was created in 2008: “It was a time when the popularity of fashion blogs took off. Everyone avidly read (and even more watched) the blogs of Tavi Gevinson, Jane Aldridge, The Sartorialist...”

Victoria Naumova Between 2010 and 2012, many more fashion bloggers appeared, including Maya Starovoitova, Olga Burdina, Anastasia Slavuta, Anna Timoshenko and many others. Of the girls listed, only Olga Burdina continues to maintain her blog, but no longer in a fashion format, but rather in a personal one. Today we can name quite a lot of bloggers who have been developing their platforms for some time, but various reasons stopped updating them. And there are only a few bloggers who regularly post and are active in the Belarusian fashion sphere. Among them are Masha Pogorelova, Dasha Bambalina, Polina Galushko, Irina Zhukova and the only Belarusian male fashion blogger Ilya Trifonenkov.

About the start and content

One way or another, most bloggers start their own online platforms due to their passion for the topic of fashion and style. At some point, an overabundance of information and reasoning leads to the desire to share it with others. And the most convenient form for this is a blog.

The first Belarusian fashion blogger Victoria Naumova used her page as a training ground and was one of the first to write about Belarusian designers: “I learned to write, develop certain topics, and cover events. And I quickly realized that my topic could be Belarusian designers, whom no one had heard of at that time.” Maya Starovoitova - stylist, fashion blogger in the past, on this moment owner of a fashion consulting company - started the fashion blog Vanilla Sky back in 2010. It appeared as a result of a passion for fashion and an overabundance of important and interesting information that I wanted to share. On her blog, Maya wrote reviews of fashion weeks, analyzed the style of celebrities, showed the wardrobes of friends and talked about vintage fashion.

“I also did interviews with models, actresses, photographers and designers from the USA. And after Belarus Fashion Week appeared in our country, I began writing reviews of collections of Belarusian designers, as well as covering fashion events in Minsk.”

Maya Starovoitova Masha Pogorelova's blog also appeared as a result of her passion for fashion. But before pogue.by came out as we know it, Masha tried to start a blog 4 times, each of which ended without development. “Now the main topic of pogue.by is fashion in Belarus, fashion events and meetings at which I report: for example, the very popular “Details” section.”

But the only male fashion blogger in Belarus, Ilya Trifonenkov, created his blog inspired by his wife’s blogging debut. Ilya has been running trifonenkov.com since 2012 and publishes posts about his fashionable looks, reviews various products and talks about travel.

Ilya Trifonenkov Polina Galushko was an observer of Belarusian fashion for a long time, and then she finally decided to become a participant in the process and write about fashion and the people of Belarus: “In the fall of 2013, I wrote letters to all the event organizers, in which I simply and honestly declared my desire to attend the shows and asked them for accreditation. It worked: they answered me and even invited me to participate in a blogger competition. So I started aktprekrasnogo.com.”

Polina Galushko

About the stages of development

When stand-alone platforms were not yet so popular, everyone used LiveJournal. It was easier to find an audience and gain fame there. This happened to Victoria Naumova, who subsequently transferred the blog to a separate platform and was faced with the difficulty of promotion. Then Victoria decided to turn her blog into a fashion portal: “In 2010, I transformed the blog into a full-fledged fashion site - I always wanted more. The site became even more difficult; it required more high-quality, exclusive updates, SEO support, etc.”

Reposts from friends, acquaintances, and interview subjects help in popularizing the blog. IN social networks information spreads very quickly, and in their conditions it is quite possible to “wake up as a star.” It was reposts that became an important stage in the development of Maya Starovoitova’s blog: they were mainly done by the heroes of the interviews. Then Maya began writing constructive reviews of the collections of Belarusian designers, which began to attract even more readers to the blog: “As soon as I started receiving negative messages from anonymous people, I realized that people knew about the blog.”

An important stage in the development of a blog is “recognition” from the press. For example, when Masha Pogorelova’s blog began to gain fame, glossy magazines asked the girl to write materials for them, interview interesting characters, or wanted to publish her material on their pages.

Masha Pogorelova (Photo: Alexey Isachenko) Another significant step for many fashion bloggers is participation in the only professional competition, Fashion Blog Competition, which takes place as part of Belarus Fashion Week. Polina Galushko recalls that after winning this competition, her blog began to actively develop (and in the future it collected the first million views). And for Maya Starovoitova, victory in the very first competition became fundamental.

About commerce

Perhaps this is a topic that not only bloggers like to discuss. Not because it is not accepted, but because in our country the monetization of such an intangible object as a blog is just beginning to gain momentum. While foreign bloggers have long been making full money from their work (Chiara Ferragni, Christina Bazan, Aimee Song, Nejin Mirsalehi).

In most cases, a blog becomes the starting point through which its owner becomes known as a person. In turn, thanks to this blogger, new opportunities open up: you can build a full-fledged career on your already sounding name (open a brand, get the desired position, etc.). Therefore, it is quite expected that bloggers initially view their pages as an image platform for gaining experience, acquaintances and reputation.

Victoria Naumova (center) For example, Victoria Naumova’s blog did not generate income, but it helped launch her career. Victoria Yankovskaya, editor of Fashion Collection magazine, had a similar situation, who also ran her own fashion blog: “I didn’t perceive it as a possible source of income; rather, the blog was a “pass ticket”: I was able to more easily meet and communicate with interesting people - photographers, designers, stylists, models, and offer them joint projects.”

Maya Starovoitova also did not consider her blog as a commercial platform; besides, 6-7 years ago, Belarusian digital was not so strong. “If I started a blog now, in 2016, then of course I would monetize it, because creating quality content is a lot of work.”

Maya Starovoitova (FASH’ON lecture) And Masha Pogorelova believes that making money for a fashion blogger in our country is a painful issue: “I very carefully select brands and companies with which I plan to cooperate. If I am offered an interesting project or activity, then I can agree to participate without financial support. Everything is very individual."

Polina Galushko also agrees with the opinions of the others: “Frankly speaking, I don’t see any prospects in terms of earnings yet. In order to make a living from a blog, all conditions must be met: both for the reader and for the blogger. And for quality work you need a team: a photographer, a programmer.”

Polina Galushko and Masha Pogorelova The only one of our heroes who receives income from his occupation is Ilya Trifonenkov: “At first my blog was just a hobby. At the moment, it has become a job, and every job has a commercial basis. It is useless to sit and wait until you start receiving offers of cooperation, be it in Belarus or any other country. I try to find projects that interest me, brands that I can contact. I’m introducing new monetization and integration formats, gaining work experience. In other words, I’m creating a personal brand that promotes not only me, but also a small business called Pelagys.”

What is missing?

On the path to quality, something is always missing: money, time, talent or diligence. For good content there are not enough news leads and heroes. Our bloggers, when asked what is missing, often name reasons that lie within themselves. However, they are also concerned about the small number of interesting events that they want to write about (both now and in 2008), and the “silence” of readers.

Victoria Naumova lacked self-confidence, experience and perseverance. But, according to her, many novice specialists suffer from this. But the second problem was precisely the lack of information feeds: “Yes, in 2008 we had very few fashion events. I can name only two - “Fashion Mill” and “Fashion Week”, which was then held by the Belarusian Fashion Center.”

Maya Starovoitova, 2012 When asked what was missing to improve her platform (tools, resources, audience response), Maya Starovoitova also says that she lacked simple confidence: “You need to understand that texts accompanied by someone else’s visuals do not really attract people. They are interested in how you dress and look, because this can be truly discussed.

And even though I did it, it was still hard for me to publish my photos.” Lack of time and diligence hindered Victoria Yankovskaya, especially since she soon began working on a new project - a portal about style and fashion, which took up all her time and energy.

Masha Pogorelova is worried about a small number of events, especially in the summer and after the winter holidays, and also in her opinion “There is a serious lack of representation of international brands that could set global standards for cooperation with bloggers.” And according to Polina Galushko, in order to get the right response, a blogger must be “constant” (at least 2-3 posts a week), honest (not write deliberately positive custom posts) and original (come up with your own tricks).”

Very often bloggers lack a basic response: readers are passive and do not want to engage in discussion. There are several reasons for this, one of the most important is the fear of ruining relationships, because the fashion industry in Belarus is so small, everyone knows each other and tries to be friends with everyone.

Masha Pogorelova faces this: “Often there is a low response to materials: they are taken into account, discussed on the sidelines, but it is very difficult to provoke an open discussion.”

About “edgy” posts and readers’ attitudes towards them

It is relevant here to think about whether currently to our small fashion community, critical posts that can cause controversy. On the one hand, they are very necessary, because they give rise to discussions in which decisions are subsequently made. And satisfaction from the work done comes only when you receive a response. If they don’t react to you in any way, then you’re not doing anything. Criticism is difficult to love, but it is useful to learn to accept it, like any other opinion.

On the other hand, while our fashion community learns to take criticism into account and not be offended by it, critical reviews will have time to quarrel everyone. Therefore, our bloggers prefer to publish neutral content or “smooth out” the corners. However, there are those who advocate healthy criticism.

In her blog, Maya Starovoitova focused on constructive feedback, trying not to get attached to anyone’s opinion and express her own position about shows, the work of designers, etc. But not everyone in our fashion community took the criticism well. “Some stopped greeting me. They probably thought that I just wanted to hurt someone with my lyrics, but that’s not the case. I have always believed and still believe that constructive criticism is a motivator. But keyword- constructive." Victoria Yankovskaya took a more neutral position on her blog and does not remember that relationships with any of her acquaintances deteriorated because of her posts: “I think in order to write critical posts, you need a very serious background, which I didn’t have then.”

Masha Pogorelova (right) It also happens that criticism of events in posts works, although it is not accompanied by the most positive response from the organizers. Nevertheless, they take the information into account, and next time the event leaves a more pleasant impression. This was the experience of Masha Pogorelova, who follows the rules on her blog and prefers to express criticism, but only in cases of egregious situations.

But Polina Galushko, who temporarily suspended blogging (more on that below), previously took an exclusively neutral position and tried not to offend anyone. Now the girl believes that it was a mistake: “There is no life in this, it’s boring and boring. Now I understand the value of correct skepticism, so in the future you are unlikely to see posts on my blog with common courtesy.”

About pauses and closing blogs The good thing about a personal blog (especially if it does not bear commercial responsibility) is that it can be closed at any time. Or “pause” and then continue again. In this regard, the blogger is his own boss.

You can also grow from a blog. “I wanted to do something more.– says Victoria Naumova. — About 1.5 years ago I closed the site, and now with great pleasure I returned to the blog again. Now there are more posts about beauty, but gradually I will direct it towards lifestyle topics.”

It's time for a change for Polina Galushko's blog. Seeing that it stopped updating, we were already afraid that now we had one less blogger, but Polina dissuaded us and told us what was the matter: “For now I don’t blog at all, because I want to see it differently. It's time to update ideas and content."

Fashion consulting became a logical continuation of Maya’s activities: “I see that there are problems in Belarusian fashion, but they can be solved. But for some reason no one solves them, they still don’t talk about it, not even bloggers. All this leads to the fact that we are no longer just standing still, but rolling back. I clearly see how I can help this or that designer, so I decided to do it officially.”

On the state of the Belarusian fashion blogosphere

A fashion blogger is the voice of fashion. A person who writes about fashion, style, loves to dress and capture his images on camera and everything else - has his own reasoned point of view about what is happening in his professional field. But it often happens that, even when regularly performing all the tasks of a fashion blogger, many of them do not achieve popularity, and some even “burn out” in the very first steps.

What is important for a person claiming to be a good fashion blogger? Taste and writing skills, certain character traits (inquisitiveness, activity, ability to quickly digest information), passion for fashion and related areas, budget (for a good website, photographer, clothes and trips).

Each of these points can be developed into a separate discussion, but among them there is not a single supernatural condition that would be inaccessible to Belarus and, in particular, to Minsk.

There are many stylish people in Minsk who have taste and can afford above-average brands. There are many educated, erudite people in Minsk who understand fashion. And each of us probably has such a friend. That is, by all measures, there should be more than enough truly interesting fashion bloggers in our city.

But there are not as many of them as we would like. Therefore, we decided to ask our heroes what they themselves think about their field and what prospects they see in it.

Maya Starovoitova believes that Belarusian fashion blogs have prospects, and they are great, since this niche is almost unoccupied. According to her, now is a great time to become a blogger, but you need to work for it: “This is not as simple as it seems from the outside: posts must appear frequently and promptly, you need to take a lot of photographs, take pictures of yourself, people, clothes, process all this, and then promote it. You need to be creative to stand out from the crowd and try to make money by pitching your ideas to brands and companies.”

Maya does not read Belarusian fashion blogs and cannot objectively assess the current situation: “Perhaps if I saw efficiency, more creativity and an interesting style, I would read.” The girl also believes that there are a lot of grievances in the Belarusian blogosphere (against brands, designers), bloggers are often ignored and not invited to events: “Here, I think, you can ask a counter question: do you create unique content that you want to pay for or for which you want to be invited? In any case, I believe and know that hard work pays off, so those who work hard and efficiently on the blog will receive results in the form of an audience and money.”

Masha Pogorelova believes that the emergence of an adequate sphere of fashion blogs will be caused by the struggle of brands for the client, and we have enough fashion bloggers, they just choose areas that are acceptable to them, because of which they sometimes remain in the shadows: “We have wonderful fashion bloggers, but they have set their sights on Russia and shifted to simple content or content on related topics, beauty, lifestyle, reviews of new places and latest films.”

There is an opinion that the state of the blogosphere is influenced by the situation in our country. Polina Galushko says: “Reading blogs is essentially entertainment, and most people are now focused on how to feed their family. Wrong interests. Culture is also an important condition, as is openness to new things. So far, Belarusians do not accept blogs because they are a curiosity. The time will come and they will become clear to the audience.”

Ilya Trifonenkov One more important point is the period when the blog started. For example, five years ago there were completely different mechanics for attracting readers, which now no longer give the desired result. Ilya Trifonenkov thinks so: “If I didn’t have a blog now, and they offered me to create one from scratch, I would refuse.”

All the heroes agree on one opinion: the sphere of fashion blogs in our country is just developing. Ilya Trifonenkov believes: “You can count the number of bloggers who create quality content on one hand. And, in fact, this area is developing only thanks to those who started blogging back in 2008. Moreover, over the past 3 years, no young authors have appeared in Belarus who constantly write in this direction on their standalone (autonomous) blogs. You need to invest a lot of effort and money into your development. And in global fashion blogging there is very high competition, and most are not interested in young authors from Belarus.” Ilya also believes that Instagram and Youtube in the lifestyle category are now more popular.

Instead of a result Even after many years, a fashion blog in Belarus is still a hobby that belongs to truly passionate people. They do not make money from their hobby, but continue to develop it because they love Belarusian fashion, designers and actively follow the global industry.

But what cannot be taken away from Belarusian bloggers is the opportunity to declare themselves as an interesting personality and professional, first online, and then in reality. As we have seen from the words of the heroes themselves, the sphere of Belarusian fashion blogs is so small and undeveloped that it is still easy to find your place in it and become an opinion leader. And, as you know, online reputation is easily converted into something tangible. And even if a blog doesn't have any commercial prospects in sight, it can be a great launching pad for something that will bring those prospects.

Text: Anastasia Sokolovskaya

Images: Pinterest.com

Belarusian blogger Vlad Bumaga gathered thousands of his teenage fans in a shopping center in Minsk. TUT.BY told about the most popular YouTube channels Belarusians.

LaGGeR

1.9 million subscribers, 505 million views.

20-year-old Andrey Shavel lives in Lida, studied at college with a degree in mechanical engineering. He publishes reviews of the game Minecraft - he goes through unusual maps, starts wars and talks about “mods” - third-party additions to the game.

Most popular video: MineCraft (1.5.2) [Mod Review] No. 70 – FLAN (World War Two)— 7 million views

Estimated revenue for the month:

2.3 - 37.1 thousand dollars ( SocialBlade )

5.8 thousand dollars ( SeeZisLab )

Vlad Paper (A4)

1.6 million subscribers, 76 million video views

Vlad is 21 years old, he lives in Minsk. Paper is his real name (at least, that’s what he claims himself), and he calls his subscribers “paper people.” In addition, he has a tattoo on his palm with the name of his channel - A4.