POPULAR social media influencer Juliet “Julie Mango” Bodley says she is unapologetic about switching from engineering to full-time content creation.

“Content creation has always been my love. It has been my first love so it was always a part of me — and eventually the truth just came out. It just evolved naturally.

“It wasn’t really anything that attracted me to social media but it’s just the love for creating content; and what I realised is that if I put it on social media people actually respond [so] then I just continued to do that,” she told the Jamaica Observer at the Island Music Conference on Friday.

The event, held at the Courtleigh Auditorium in St Andrew, saw Julie Mango as one of the day’s panellists for a session dubbed Content Evolution — changing content for a changing world.

The other panellists included Brandon Pankey from Live Urban Nation, Rachel Jackson from YouTube, and Brittany Johnson from Meta (formerly Facebook). Nolan Baynes of New York-based 300 Studios was the moderator.

The comedian earned her bachelor’s in structural engineering at the University of Technology, Jamaica (UTech) in St Andrew before pursuing a master’s in engineering management at Florida International University (FIU). She now resides in Missouri.

She lists Jamaican actors Oliver Samuels, Dionne Silvera, Dahlia Harris, Fae Ellington, Volier Johnson and Glen “Titus” Campbell as major influences.

Julie Mango rose to prominence during the early stages of the novel coronavirus pandemic last year as she sought simply to provide entertainment online. To date, she has over 523,000 followers on TikTok, and over 236,000 on Instagram. Her comedy sketches usually depict Jamaican culture.

“I get my ideas from my personal experiences — sometimes from current events — and sometimes people ask me to do a certain skit,” she explained, adding that her family and friends have been supportive of her career.

The influencer explained that all her productions are done single-handedly.

“In terms of the videos, I do everything but I have a team in Missouri with me; but I do the editing…I do everything,” she said.

She officially threw in the towel on engineering in December 2021, and content creation has become her bread and butter.

“No regrets! All glory to God. I want to continue to build my brand and just to move into the television space, probably go into movies, but this is actually [the] fundamentals of it so it’s just to continue to build my brand, and continue to sell my talents, and continue to give praises to God,” she said.

She is also encouraging youngsters who might have a knack for content creation to seek guidance before pursuing it.

“Mi nah tell nobody fi drop outta school but what I would say is: ‘Pray about it; and in this life, don’t be afraid to make a mistake. Be careful. Calculate your risks, ask for divine direction, and just do what you think you need to do,” Julie Mango said.