Shod Santiago checks all the boxes and checks none at the same time!

Do you remember the six second clip craze with Vine? It might seem like a thing from the past but some of your favorite social media influencers today got their start on Vine. Vine is where Shod Santiago’s journey to new heights began.

“I made a video on Vine one day and it went viral, I was paid to go out and host events”

When you think of influencers today, you think of paid advertising marked on a post or even the individuals proclaiming themselves to be social media influencers. For Santiago, that wasn’t the case because back then he had only six seconds to get it right and make you laugh. “Honestly I just made videos to entertain people and I was being me,” said Santiago as he reminisced on the days of Vine. His presence then and now were the same; he let you into his world and he kept it real. This is what differentiates Shod from your normal influencer, because he isn’t focused on the likes, shares, and algorithms. It’s about the joy of connecting with other people through humor and many times his humor is grounded in his experiences and truths. 

“Honestly I’m a natural entertainer.”

Though Shod is a world class entertainer, he hustled his way to the top even with humble beginnings working at a pharmacy. There he took acting classes so that he could hone his craft which lead to him shooting several pilots and to being on broadway. The stage is where he finds love and a home. Shod shares, “I love it because you get one chance to entertain the audience as they sit in one spot watching you.”

“When people laugh at the things I say, I look at them like ‘why?’ Because I’m not even trying to be funny; I’m just being me”

I was surprised with the answer I received when I asked him if he had a degree in theater or the arts. “ I actually have a degree in broadcast journalism and a minor in English,” said Santiago. His career in entertainment found him and not the other way around. He shares that his friends kept telling him how funny he was and how he needed to go further with entertainment. But for Shod, the things that made him laugh were just him telling them like it was.“I just get online and have unfiltered conversations.”

“People get mad when I say it but we did open the doors for people.”

Unapologetically, Shod states that those, like himself, who got their start on Vine, and still have a huge social media following today, laid the way for the next generation of social media content creators and influencers. Those six seconds constrained them to not only grab your attention but required them to pump out content that would organically grow a following. “I feel like those people you see that survived the days of Vine and are thriving now on social media deserve their roses,” said Santiago. He believes they deserve their respect because they did this when it wasn’t such a focus for society and before the age of influencer marketing. 

“It’s funny because I’m basically talking about things that happened with my personal experiences.”

Those unfiltered and raw conversations are now taking life in Santiago’s second book, Your Gay Bestfriend’s Guide to Understanding Men. Shod wrote this book because he has a vast amount of interesting dating experiences with men. Additionally, he always heard his girlfriends talking about their dating experiences. He wanted to give women something that could empower them— and in this instance, it’s information on the men they date.

Some of the questions Shod asks his girlfriends when they are wondering about their situations with their men are:

Do you know what to look for with your man? 

Do you know how to manage situations with your man?

This book is meant to help women understand how to spot early warning signs and how to deal with situations as they arise. It really astonishes him at times that people really take his advice and it feels him with a lot of joy. 

“At the end of the day I would rather be heartbroken in Dubai than in a Camry.”