Seth Gor is one of the more popular Kenyan creatives to have made a name for himself as a vine creator. His funny videos on various social media platforms garner as much as 10,000 views in a matter of minutes and he has been making vines for over four years now.
The 22-year-old is also co-founder of Vines Of Africa alongside George Kimani, 24.
Seth spoke to Buzz, about his career, his Vines of Africa teammates and the story of their TV- show-in-waiting.
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I am an entertainer, and I wouldn’t really call myself a comedian. But I’m a creative, and I love coming up with funny video content that I usually post on my social media. I’ve always been the funny guy around. I can make light of literally any situation! My creativity comes from me being naturally funny, being the class clown and hype person who gets people in trouble.
I started doing vines in 2014, while awaiting admission to the University of Nairobi. My main inspiration back then was King Bach, one of the most popular viners in the world. I saw what he did and believed I could recreate that, with a Kenyan touch. Time went by and eventually, I met George, who was also doing his vines. We started doing a TV show together at a station called TVC. Sharon and I were friends from school and one day she said she wanted to come and see how we do our videos. We gave her a small role, and she was phenomenal. Fast forward to 2017 we met our Director, Mr Henry Wahome who was working at Scanad, and we registered vines of Africa as our company, a brand storytelling entity.
We seek to change the advertising scene in Kenya. Our selling point is usually humour-driven by our creativity, and still the intended message gets to be spread. We felt like most Kenyan adverts were all the same; get a famous person who narrates the script in an accent, then add a jingle at the end. We want to change that.
Our method of comedy is mostly situational, we take a daily occurrence and add some exaggeration to it. We try to be as current and relevant as possible in our content. We make our videos, not only for the Kenyan audience but the international audience as well. This helped some of our videos trend worldwide.
When we get gigs, we usually outsource production to achieve the highest quality possible. Video director, Mr Mushking, comes in handy in that department. For the regular vines, George Kimani is the one who shoots, directs and edit, I come up with the content, and Sharon is the talent; she is arguably one of the best actresses in Kenya currently.
My biggest motivator(s) in this industry has to be Big Ted and Sir George Lutta. These guys inspire and teach me the ropes; what to do and what not to do in order to survive this vicious industry. I like Dave Chapelle and Chris Roch as comedians. Their contents are very raw and, within the comedy, they address social issues affecting the society, which I feel is very important. The most underrated comedians, I will speak globally, have to be Jim Jeffries and Eddie Griffin.
One of the difficulties we encounter in this industry is that gigs aren’t assured, and sometimes you could go a while without getting them. But we decided upon our self to better our craft, such that it is clients who would be looking for us. In this industry you need to have a strong heart, sometimes the clients won’t like your ideas and this forces you to go back to the drawing board. You don’t need to sulk about it or have self-pity yourself. You just need to hustle harder!
I remember this one time I thought I was being funny, but I was really embarrassing myself. We were in a meeting and there was this girl I had a crush on and wanted to impress. So when someone commented, I tried to make a pun out of it but it severely backfired. Everyone in the room started looking at me awkwardly…
As an online comedian, the only way you would make money is through endorsements, when brands approach you to market their products. We are currently shooting our TV show. We went on a brief break to sort out some internal issues, but we sure will be back. The next step for vines of Africa is to get out of our comfort zone. We want to create not only better content, but more original content that will capture people’s minds and eyes. We believe we can spearhead that change needed in the film industry in Kenya, regarding comedic creativity, instead of the same old, same old.
My favourite joke is; you can call me Lionel because I want to make your bed messy.
My advice to an upcoming comedian is, don’t give up! Never stop trying and, most importantly, never get comfortable. Remember, there will always be new people coming up so always keep your content fresh and current as well.
Am I taken or not? As far as I know, no one out there claims me, so yes, I’m very single.
