Sai Balaji reminisces on her social media experiences and her hopes for the future

By: Daniella Lopez

A graphic with a photo of Sai Balaji surrounded by food

Sai Balaji, better known as “tryittoronto” on TikTok and Instagram, doesn’t want her account to be exclusively niched into a food blog.

“I like to call it my digital diary,” Balaji said.

The fourth-year business technology management student at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) started actively posting to TikTok about a year and a half ago. She’s wanted to post content for as long as she can remember. Her food videos often went viral, so she stuck with them.

Currently, Balaji’s content revolves around restaurant reviews and date activities within the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). She has amassed over 80,000 followers on TikTok and over 7,000 Instagram followers.

CanCulture asked Balaji her top food recommendations; in no particular order, she said Vela Toronto, Offworld Bar and Lake Inez.

Balaji’s desire to try new food and places while documenting her journey is what led her to grow on the platforms. “I feel like Toronto is very rich in culture because there’s so much diversity. We definitely take advantage of that, and we don’t explore as much as we should.”

Balaji quickly realized if she wanted to grow on the platforms, relating her videos to her potential audience, like those living in the GTA, would be beneficial.

@tryittoronto Obsessed with their avocado rolls #fyp #foodie #toronto #cheesecakefactory #thingstodointoronto #yorkdale #cheesecake #dateideas #torontofood ♬ Flowers - Miley Cyrus

Yet Balaji’s journey as a content creator wasn’t always easy. In the beginning stages of her process, Balaji says she would record footage, not post it and then delete it because she didn’t think anyone would care.

In her earlier videos, her face was never included; if she had to be in the video, she would only show her back.

“I did not want anybody to know it was me.”

She didn’t tell her parents about the account until she reached 50,000 followers.

Slowly, Balaji realized posting made her happy.

While Balaji acknowledges her journey to over 80,000 followers is “mind-blowing,” which people might attribute to being a content creator now, she says it’s ultimately just a number.

“As a human being, I feel like we set these goals for ourselves, and then when we reach them, we think we’re going to be so incredibly happy. But in reality, they don’t really matter,” Balaji said.

Balaji describes each milestone, like reaching 10,000 and then 50,000 followers, as a “never-ending race.”

Balaji posts food reviews and activity spots on her social media (Daniella Lopez/CanCulture).

It could be the platform itself that makes creators like Balaji always yearn for more.

TikTok, Balaji says, is about adding value to the viewer. She says people care more about the activity in the video rather than the person.

Instagram, in contrast, juxtaposes TikTok’s frequently impersonal interface. While Balaji has a smaller following on that platform than TikTok, she feels like her Instagram followers are genuinely interested in her. Yet each platform, she says, is better for certain things. “I do love the TikTok community because it feels like I’m talking to new people every day,” she said.

While content creation takes much of Balaji’s time, she also has to worry about something else: being a student.

“School definitely has taken a backseat since I started content creation,” Balaji said. It wasn’t that she didn’t care about her degree anymore, but Balaji wanted to prioritize what made her the happiest.

“If I can just get decent grades, do something that I love and really enjoy my time being a student while I'm having fun, I’d rather do that.”

@tryittoronto That burger was too pretty😫 #fyp #foodie #foodreview #innout #fries #burger #cheeseburger #foodtok #foodtiktok #torontoinfluencer #foodinfluencer #blogger #canada #canadian ♬ Tubarão Te Amo - DJ LK da Escócia & Tchakabum & Mc Ryan SP

Balaji’s next goal with the account is to travel abroad and continue documenting the interesting food and fun places she visits. But because her name is Toronto-centric, she worries about the lack of opportunities she may come across. She eventually hopes to change her username into an eponymous one to establish more of a community with her followers.

Whenever the change comes, Balaji’s love for content creation will never fizzle out.

“I think it’s so much fun, and I just see myself doing this forever and never complaining.”

Nobody would have guessed that Morgann Book would be uploading more than just videos of herself decorating cakes to an audience of almost three million followers on TikTok. What’s next for the Ancaster teen?

By: Darya Soufian

In January 2020, Morgann Book uploaded two videos of herself decorating some Dairy Queen cakes to TikTok. She woke up the next day to millions of views and thousands of new followers.

A lot changed for the young teenager as she gained more traction and quickly became the “Dairy Queen girl from TikTok.” By the first quarter of 2021, Book had amassed two million followers and a growing fan base that was craving more.

It’s been over two years since she started this journey and the almost 19-year-old is showing no signs of slowing down. But some things have definitely changed.

Book graduated from high school last year and started her first year of social science at McMaster University. She plans on specializing in political science next year.

About three years ago, when the Book family opened the Dairy Queen store in Ancaster, Ont., Monica Dycha started working there and quickly hit it off with Book.

Friends and co-workers, Morgann Book (left) and Monica Dycha (right), pose together with some Blizzards at the Ancaster Dairy Queen store. (Darya Soufian/CanCulture)

The two went to elementary school together, but with Dycha being a year older, they didn’t become friends until they started working together. Eventually, she started helping Book with her videos.

“We’re both very similar. We both love reading books and hanging out together,” Dycha said. “We were working a shift together and she asked me if I wanted to be a part of a loop she was making for a video, and I said yes.”

Soon after, they started to hang out outside of the workplace and Dycha would get involved with the vlogs that Book was making.

“I didn’t know people would want to get a cake just for Morgann to decorate and film it, which she did a lot of the time. That was pretty shocking,” Dycha said. “It’s sometimes weird to me that people say to her ‘I love you so much’ like a celebrity, but I’ve never seen Morgann as a celebrity.”

“I see her as my best friend, so it’s really cool but also surprising… It’s definitely been a life-changing experience for her and everyone who works at the Dairy Queen, but it hasn’t changed anyone’s attitude. And she’s really humble about it too.”

In her first semester of university, Book didn’t work much at Dairy Queen, but she has found more of a balance between work and school in this second semester. As much as she enjoys interacting with her co-workers and customers, she plans to cut down her hours until the summer.

@morgannbook Spend a day with me ☀️🌊 #dayinmylife #naples #icecream #fifthave #watersideshops #dq ♬ ALL THE PPL UNDER THIS SOUND GIMME A KISS - <3

While Book still wants to be a lawyer, this new “influencer” lifestyle is becoming a consistent side hustle for her right now. It’s been a lot to juggle — and sometimes a struggle to get brand deals — but she recently hired a manager to help lift some of the weight off her shoulders. It has allowed Book to focus a bit more on school and creating content.

“They handle all of my emails, brand deals and negotiations; the business side to content creation,” Book said.

Some of her favourite collaborations so far include IKEA and Indigo. She hopes to work with Audible, Lululemon and Spotify soon.

In the past year, Book has started to get more comfortable with YouTube, where she has more creative freedom to make longer videos on just about anything. She started her channel in March 2021 and now has over 700,000 subscribers.

Book also added that there’s a new audience to engage with on YouTube, which she wasn’t expecting. She initially thought that most of her TikTok followers would migrate over, but has since noticed that the majority of her subscribers are new to her content.

“The response I get from TikTok sometimes isn’t the greatest and it can be really negative. I think it takes a hit on people’s self-esteem and overall confidence, but on YouTube, I found it to be surprisingly positive,” Book said. “There’s still some hate comments but it’s a really supportive community. I think that’s what has made me want to continue to grow — it changed my mindset a little bit.”

Book’s shifts often include decorating birthday cakes and filming them for TikTok videos using a phone holder around her neck. (Mara Tataryn/Dairy Queen)

Brand deals and content creation aside, Book has been going on family trips to Florida for a break, mostly from the cold. She also takes this as an opportunity to visit other Dairy Queen locations and scope out something new to try.

“Everytime I go in, my parents are like, ‘Tell them you make videos!’, and I never bring it up. I’ve never been asked about my videos, even though I’m always filming when I go in,” she said. “I just don’t want to be that person, I just want to be another customer. I want to see how they work. I don’t know why but it’s so intriguing to me.”

This new journey with social media might be a long-term gig for Book, but she admits that it does scare her sometimes to think about having so many eyes on her.

“When I was younger, I liked to fly under the radar. I was very introverted and not into social media. It’s been exciting having people watch me grow and make mistakes — it sounds cheesy but it’s true,” she said. “Sometimes it stresses me out a bit because of this filtered version I’m often presenting to the world, and a small part of me wishes I was just not part of this… although I’m so thankful for it.”

Book thinks that it will be fun to tell her kids about how she made cake videos when she was younger, but also said that there’s a small chance she will still be doing it when she’s 40.

“I don’t know if I’m still going to be doing this even in a couple of years — but I hope I am.”