When Divya Sashendran first crossed my For You page (FYP) on TikTok, it took me a full ten seconds to realise that I was watching a sponsored ad. There’s a certain natural charm about Divya that feels authentic; something between your everyday ‘girl next door’, and a presence that just demands your full attention.
With so much bite-sized content being pushed on social media platforms these days, the people yearn for barely-filtered vlogs that are at least half an hour long. (It’s me. I’m people. Especially because I come from the days of YouTube vloggers who would take us through every least interesting minute of their day.) So, when I stumble across Gen-Zers who post long, rambling five-minute videos on TikTok or a ‘day in the life’ vlog that actually takes me through their entire day, it’s as if I’m thrown head first into a secret gold mine.
Watching a Divya Sashendran vlog feels a lot like that. Her recording style is reminiscent the days of old YouTube videos past, of tucking yourself in on a lazy weekend with a coffee — or matcha — in hand, knowing you’re in for a treat as you live vicariously through her. It feels like FaceTiming a best friend as you both unwind, listening as she debriefs about her day.
“I graduated last year,” 25-year-old Divya Sashendran, better known online as her mononym, starts with, when I ask if she can share a small piece of herself. (She had majored in pharmacy.) “But I’m currently pursuing content creation until I figure out what kind of life I want for myself. I don’t know what that looks like yet. So, I’m honestly just documenting the parts and parcel of life, like, basically figuring out what I want to do. Documenting my experiences that feel relatable to my audience online.”
Divya’s content ranges from beauty, lifestyle and, more recently, a lot of travel. (She also just came back from her first ever solo trip in Bali.) But Divya doesn’t quite fall into any specific ‘label’ — in fact, you’ll probably find her yapping about anything that she can think of—and she’s versatile enough that even today, for our cover shoot, she transforms herself at will. The role she takes on is a fun one. At some point, she is out in the sun with the garden hose turned on, and she’s carefully manoeuvring the water so it doesn’t mess up her makeup.
While Divya got her start with, as she puts it, “cringey TikTok dances when everyone else was doing them”, by 2023 she began vlogging and really connecting with people online. Her videos finally took off around mid-2024, and she had already built up a steady following then. She’d found her niche: skincare and makeup, which was heavily influenced by her studies in science. It had also been seamlessly integrated with studying vlogs in between.
“Most importantly, I feel like my work ethic is really shown in that way,” Divya says of her uni life. She’d chosen to do pharmacy because it seemed to her a wide, all-encompassing field, but she probably would have chosen to pursue something else if given the chance today. But it certainly helped her understand the depth of skincare and makeup better. “I’m always on time with deadlines and punctuality now, and I feel like that stemmed from my uni days as well.”
Right now, content creation is not just Divya’s full-time job — it’s also her means of finding herself. Like many modern young women in their twenties, Divya is deep in her ‘character building’ phase, and so she is learning as much about herself as we are, as her audience. “As cliché as it sounds, honestly I’m very myself, especially on TikTok and YouTube,” she tells me. “I never, like, try to push something else that’s not me. Even with my dressing, like, I know a lot of people can be very conservative, religion-wise or whatever, but I don’t let that get to me. I am myself, and I show up as myself. And I think people can see that. Maybe that’s why they relate to me. I share both the good and the bad. You’ve seen me cry online.” She laughs. “I don’t know why it’s such a taboo topic to cry or show emotions. I feel like that’s just human. I mean, a lot of people do give shit, saying, ‘Why are you crying online?’ But, like, what’s the difference, you know? I can be happy online, and I can show up sad online.”
After a couple of years of this, Divya has more or less gotten used to online criticism. A lot of it comes from knowing her own purpose — to connect with her audience meaningfully — and as long as she sticks to that, while keeping true to herself, then nothing else really matters. “So, I’m not very fluent in Tamil,” Divya opens, recounting a moment when she’d had to face it head on. “And I always do try connecting with my audiences, because they are mostly Indians. And a lot of them are always in my comments, like, asking me to speak in Tamil. So, I did a ‘get ready with me’ video, but trying to speak in Tamil. And obviously, my accent is going to be different. It doesn’t sound fluent. Yeah, I grew up that way, I’m sorry,” she interjects with a laugh.
“And there were a lot of positive comments. But on the other side, there were also negative comments where people would be like, ‘Oh, she’s pretending to not know Tamil.’” Divya shoots me an incredulous look. “Or, ‘Why are you embarrassed to speak in Tamil?’ And I’m like, ‘If I was embarrassed, you would not see me posting this online.’ And I’m posting to connect with y’all! It’s not like I was going to get brand deals through it, you know? I was just genuinely doing it to try and connect with an audience. So, yeah, even until now, people still ask me to do a Tamil video, but I’m like, ‘We’ll see.’”
It’s refreshing to see someone — especially a Gen-Zer like Divya — be so unapologetically herself both on camera and off. There is no persona or ‘character’ put on; she is exactly who you see online. “I feel like if you’re going to try to be someone else, if you’re going to put on a persona, how long can that last?” Divya muses. “And I feel like people can read through you, especially if you’re constantly posting. It’s also exhausting for you, to show up as someone else when you’re not really that person, right? I feel like the only way for me to be consistent with posting is for me to be myself. It’s so natural to just pick up the camera and I talk to my audience because… I mean, I do that day-to-day with other people. So, it’s not like I’m trying too hard, you know? I feel like that’s what honestly helps me be consistent also.”
Still, there’s an art to Divya’s candour. She will happily yap to the camera about her plights and perils, but she’s aware of the price that comes with oversharing. “I pick what I share,” she affirms. “So, like, I know when to draw a line. I don’t overshare about personal stuff where other people are involved. I don’t mind exposing myself, but I don’t go around exposing other people. I hate drama. I hate, like, negativity—I’m not about that. No name dropping, not even talking about experiences that… like, for example I’ve had so many experiences with people in the industry, you know, who you thought were your friends, but were not? But I’ve never spoken about it, because people are so quick to name drop in comments. And I don’t want that for the other person also. I’m a big advocate for what goes around comes around. Karma is a bitch. And the more good you do, the more you’ll get back.”
At the end of the day, Divya’s ultimate goal right now is to be happy. And to try getting herself out of her comfort zone whenever she can. Her solo trip, which had actually been an extension of a Bali getaway with her friends, taught her a lot about being on her own. “Honestly, I was already mentally preparing to be homesick and, like, sad and lonely,” Divya says, laughing, “but shockingly, I was having the time of my life. Like, I don’t know if it’s just because it was a foreign country. I always had freedom, but being in a foreign country alone just gave me, like, a whole new perspective about life. Just, like, interacting with the locals, and seeing how they spread their kindness. It has honestly inspired me to become a better person. I would definitely do it again. And I would encourage anyone that has the time or opportunity to do it also.”
This new perspective on life is something she’s hoping to carry with her on her next adventure, wherever or whenever that is. “I mean, in the long term, I really do want to come up with something for myself,” Divya muses, as we reach the end of our chat. “I don’t even know if I would ever go into corporate. But no matter what, my goal is to just be content and to be fulfilled with my life at the end of the day. I don’t want to go for a job just because I earn a lot, but then come back and be like, ‘What am I doing in my life?’ I just want to be happy. That’s the goal, whatever that looks like for me.”
editor-in-chief MARTIN TEO | editorial team MALLIE MARAN, MELISSA FOONG, RONN TAN | interview PUTERI YASMIN SURAYA | creative direction & styling MARO COLLECTIVE | photography & art direction NELSON CHONG | lighting BERNARD CHONG | assistant photography ZUKI & DAVID ONG | videography POR JIA JUN & BOBO HOO | makeup BERRY LOW | hair WILSON & CHEEING | location DAWA HOUSE MOONKITAA | wardrobe H&M
Note : The information in this article is accurate as of the date of publication.