The Wellness House experience at the ESSENCE Culture Festival 2022 saw Vanessa Crafts, Head of Content Partnerships at TikTok, lead an insightful conversation with two creators whose social content encourages viewers to prioritize wellness, self-care, and overall well-being. The host, media personality and entrepreneur joined her to delve deeper into the subject. Morgan Lynzi and licensed advisor and contractor Shani Tran.
Opening the discussion while introducing the two panelists, Craft spoke briefly in detail about his role at TikTok and his commitment to elevating Black content creators.
“In my role, my goal is to support the TikTok community, particularly the Black community on the platform across fashion, beauty, lifestyle, entertainment and sports. I really enjoy helping Black creators build their brands and develop their strategies. Black creators, as you know, are the heart of the platform, the internet… and almost everything else, right? Let’s be realistic. I love how we lead culture in such an imaginative way.
Crediting TikTok for providing a platform to grow as she slightly shifted the direction of her career, Morgan explained how her work as an entertainment host quickly led her to realize that conversations the most notable ones she participated in were those that took place off camera. and focused on things like mental health and personal wellbeing journeys.
“I truly believe — and I think it’s evident in everything I do, especially on TikTok — that having a really good time and feeling nourished and connected is not mutually exclusive to moving the culture forward “, she said. “So the pandemic happened, live events were a ‘no’ and TikTok became the platform where I was able to bring together everything I love and introduce it to a whole new audience and find a whole new community.
For Shani, her journey to becoming a mental health counselor was twofold. She spoke candidly about how her own discouraging experience connecting with a white therapist after having suicidal thoughts as a young student is what led her to pursue a career in the field and later create content on the topic of black mental health on TikTok.
“Honestly, for me, my healing came from doing what I needed for myself,” she said. “And TikTok started during the pandemic and the first (song I came across) was ‘I’m bored at home and I’m bored at home,’ and I was like, ‘Okay, I can do a fun little clip on that,’ “….and, at the bottom. From there, I started creating content about mental health and it was really important that I spoke to my community.
To hear the conversation in full, watch the video above. To learn more about everything you missed at the 2022 ESSENCE Culture Festival, visit our official video content hub HERE
