Presenter Ali has opened up about how he struggled with depression through the journey to YouTube fame.
Ali, whose full name is Muslim Ali, began his YouTube channel after losing his job at a TV station.
Even though he had studied Urban and Regional Planning at Nairobi University, his real passion was media.
With just a phone and a microphone, he started recording street interviews and posting up to five videos a day. His hard work quickly paid off, and within three months, he had 100,000 subscribers.
Presenter Ali YouTube Millions
By 2020 and 2021, YouTube was paying him very well. Some months he earned half a million shillings, and other times close to a million.
From the outside, his life looked perfect, but he says that the success only left him feeling empty. On the same day he celebrated reaching 100,000 subscribers, he slipped into depression.
The pressure of filming, editing, and uploading everything by himself wore him down.
He had constant back pain from long hours of editing, and he felt stuck chasing numbers without a real purpose.
“I thought the money I was making would make me happy, but I was empty. I didn’t have a concrete reason for why I was doing it,” he said.
This made him change direction. He stopped doing gossip content, which he felt wasted people’s time, and started focusing on stories that mattered. Soon, people began reaching out, saying his interviews had helped them, and some even got jobs because of the exposure. This gave him a new purpose and kept him going.
Today, his channel has over 500,000 subscribers and focuses mainly on financial topics, especially forex trading.
He now runs what he calls the biggest trading podcast in Africa. He has also become a strong voice for mental health. He says therapy, which sometimes cost him up to 15,000 shillings an hour, helped him a lot—but so did shifting his focus to helping others.
By Vivian K.