by Google
He started with a training video and today he is watched by both grandmas and workers. Peter Lackovič has conquered the Slovak internet with his natural humor, quick cuts and his grandma. In the interview, he revealed why he decided to go his own way, what the boundaries of his privacy are and what he does at FunRádio.
Hi Peto, how are you?
I don't know. There's always something going on lately and I'm trying to do everything to make it go well.
Do you remember what your first video was?
Wow, a training video. I told myself that anyone can shoot anything on TikTok, so I put my training there and it didn't happen, haha. I think it was in 2021, when I was preparing for my first bodybuilding competition and trying to document it. At that time, I also started creating on YouTube, but then I gave up on it again. But I started creating in general in May 2022, when I finished school.
Why did you choose TikTok as your main platform?
I think that most people have it that their friends mainly follow them on Instagram and it's weird in front of them, we're also ashamed, but we also want to create and maybe that's what will stop a lot of people. I told myself that TikTok is such a trial, because at that time, 3 years ago, a lot of people still condemned TikTok as being for kids. That's why I decided on it.
When did it start growing for you and when did your first boom videos come out?
I know exactly when. At that time, recipes and videos like that were quite popular, so I also recorded some of my own simple recipes because I liked cooking. At the same time, I tried to incorporate the fitness aspect into it, because I enjoyed it. The training videos weren't that interesting because everyone was already doing it.
So I made a few simple recipes that had good views, around 10-20 thousand, and then I made a video that I think had 650 thousand views. It was a kebab recipe and people were really pissed off because I actually made gyros, so I discovered how easy it is to increase your impressions and comments by making people angry with something stupid. That gave me a kick and then it worked, but I still had to convince myself to go shoot because it didn't come naturally to me.
Your videos are original with your typical cut. Did you get inspiration from somewhere, or was it your idea?
This was my idea, but it wasn't planned. It was like I wanted to start shooting on Instagram too, but at the time Instagram only allowed videos up to one minute and 30 seconds, otherwise it would be added as a post. Well, I often made those TikTok videos much longer, even 5 minutes long, I couldn't cut it so that only the most important part was there, but since I'm chatty, I put those quick cuts in. I realized that I enjoyed it more this way and if there was a dead spot in the video, I would immediately delete it. It just came about naturally and became typical for me.
Those videos look like they were carefully thought out to keep your attention.
Yes, then I watched some workshops, I started listening to podcasts about it and they talked about it and I was like, "This is what I do, it makes sense". Finally, everything started to come together for me and maybe even what I didn't understand or wasn't interested in while studying marketing suddenly made great sense to me. The fact that I started educating myself in this area and started listening to podcasts about viral creation definitely moved me forward. Even though I didn't incorporate everything, I somehow put it into my style and I just confirmed that this is the way to go, because nowadays it's hard to keep the audience's attention.
Did you expect to make a living from it?
Not at all. Not that I didn't believe in myself, but when I looked at other people's reach, it sometimes didn't make sense to me why they had such reach and I'm not saying that because I envied them. I tried to improve my work and most importantly, I enjoyed it. It's so corny that you have to enjoy it, but I really enjoyed laughing at my own jokes and videos. I enjoyed the process of finally adding the video and when I made three videos in a day, I added them all because I enjoyed it. So no, I didn't expect to make a living from it.
What was your first collaboration and how did you feel about it?
They were some Polish nutritional supplements, haha. I didn't know they were Polish, but a lot of people collaborated with them because they have a micro-influencer strategy. Of course, I've been trying to go with the style from the beginning that if I don't identify with something, I don't put it out there...in fact, I've been doing that ever since, that I try to somehow incorporate those collaborations into my regular activities. And I had the feeling that I said to myself, "Wow, I can have a collaboration".
You mentioned earlier that people are most worried about the reaction of their surroundings, how your surroundings reacted to your creation?
Hmm, my friends didn't address it. Sometimes someone would tell me that they were watching my videos and I was happy. When it was someone I didn't know, I was happy and when it was someone I knew, I was a little embarrassed. But everyone more or less doesn't care who adds what, because everyone has their own problems.
Do you think people started following and liking you because you showed such an “ordinary” life?
I guess so. I think I expanded my target audience a lot because people who I wouldn’t even say have TikTok or Instagram started following me. People around 30-40 and above who work in regular jobs, like workers or whatever I would call it. And when I started adding grandma, people over 70 started following me. 80-year-old aunties stop me saying, “Great videos” and I say, “Oh my, they have a phone too”, haha. I think it’s because I’m myself and that I’ve set myself apart.
I understand, you’re not even basing your videos on some overly aesthetic videos.
Yes, I don’t have such aesthetic videos. I honestly don't know if I could film them and I wanted to do something where I could have fun before that. When I was around 18-19, modeling agencies started approaching me and I couldn't decide whether to do it or not. I couldn't imagine myself acting serious somewhere and having to be handsome because that's not me.
It's not that I didn't enjoy making a nice video, but later I didn't even have time to watch it, because I made an ugly shot here, so I made do with what I had and somehow didn't think about it. Even when I was filming at Fun Radio recently, the girls asked me if they were going to film me or if I needed a tripod, but I can lean my phone against something or someone anywhere and I don't mind having two chins. The only thing that bothers me is that when the light is bad and I can't be seen.
Since you mentioned grandma, how did it come about that you would film with her?
Well, sometimes I didn't know what to film and she is very impulsive, energetic and interesting in her own right and at the same time not everyone films their grandma...it's getting a bit more complicated, but let's just say that I just tried it the same way I tried filming myself in overalls. At that time, I also had in mind what people would think of me, but then I kept pushing the boundaries until I literally started filming on the toilet.
So it came about by chance, people liked it, and when people like it, there are more views and more likes. At the same time, I always knew where I had my own limit, that while it's nice to film a grandma, I still have to think about my personal brand, so that people watch it mainly for me, for who I am and how I edit the videos. I didn't want people to watch me purely for the grandma, even though they are like that too. For example, even when I was filming cooking videos, I didn't put too many of them in so as not to pigeonhole myself into any one category.
How did you explain to your grandma that you were going to film her and people were watching it?
You know what, not at all. She didn't even notice that I was filming her, which was good. She has her own worries and problems, so she wasn't interested. That's perhaps an advantage, because most women wouldn't let themselves be filmed for the internet. Like, every now and then she would say, "You're just kidding me and people think I'm so ugly...", but then people would meet her on the street and assure her that the videos were great. Then she started to like it herself, that she was getting some attention, and she told me several times that I hadn't filmed her in a long time.
And how did you explain to her that you had a collaboration? For example, that when you film this video, you get something for it.
Well, at first she didn't pay much attention to me and didn't understand it, but then I gave her a piece of paper and she became a complete actress and would do anything, haha.
Is there anything she won't let you film?
There were a lot of things like that, for example, she told me that I shouldn't put her cursing, etc. But often I put that in the videos and it stopped bothering her and she doesn't care. So I have to be able to evaluate what to put in there and what not, because grandma is sometimes "too" in what she can say and you have to have some boundaries.
How did grandma feel about people starting to recognize her? Do they usually stop her on the street?
Yes, they mostly recognize her in the store, at the doctor's or the nurse knew her and they wanted to take a picture with her. For example A butcher comes to our village and he recognized her from videos. But all the people he meets always have positive reactions, it hasn't happened to me either, that someone would shout or swear at me, they just want to take a picture, they are nice and wish us all the best. Grandma always calls me afterwards to say how great it is and how famous she is. Even now, when we were at that interview in FMK, which was the Podcast Park, Grandma said afterwards that she didn't even want to die anymore, that how good life is, that she wanted to die, but she didn't want to anymore, haha. People took pictures with her there, so she was happy about it.
Is there a line of privacy for you, apart from grandma, that you won't cross?
I probably wouldn't want people to know where I live in general. For example, my wife almost doesn't want to be filmed because she's a law clerk, so she has a more serious profession and therefore does not want to be shown much on the internet. But apart from that, I can't say what a boundary is.
If you had to give some advice to a budding creator right now, what would you advise him? Let him find something he enjoys, what he pays the most attention to and let him try to transform it into his creation. Let him not be afraid of it and it will come in time. I think that the more I created, the more I was myself, I was better in front of the camera, I knew how to edit better...so try, try, create and if he doesn't enjoy it, then the only way is probably a reality show, haha. But those are the kinds of things forcefully, even the pressure from reality shows is such that if you don't know how to deal with it, you don't know how to create the content in a way that you're still relevant, then all you have to do is go to another reality show and do controversial things. So try, shoot, get out of your comfort zone and persevere.
We saw your video from FunRadio, what are you going to do there? A presenter?
That's what everyone thinks now and some even wrote to me that I could make a video in which I explain what I'm going to do there. So no, I won't be a presenter, I'm going to be a creator there, that is, create content for them - whether for them or there I have a few videos assigned to me that I have to make every month, for example from some event, celebration or festival. So I will promote them outside their social networks so that people listen to them.
And If you had an unlimited budget, what kind of video would you make with your grandma?
Wow, she probably wouldn't want to go anywhere. But I would go to space with Redbull to look at our Earth and we would go with my grandma, but they probably wouldn't let her go, due to some health restrictions. But she probably wouldn't go, she doesn't even want to go to the seaside.
Have a nice day, 🍒 out.
