Back in March 2020 I went from someone who comes home only at night to sleep, because I used to spend all my day out, to someone who have to say home all day long because of a global pandemic. You can imagine what that made to me (mentally speaking).
My Name is Hisham and I am a technical guy. My work involves Business Automation, AI and Cybersecurity. Yeah, I’m that geek who knows a lot about “stuff”. I am also a photographer and a filmmaker who loves to be out of home from morning to night. Sometimes *really* late night.
I also have a degree in Music (Bachelor’s) and I was always into doing impressions of people, especially my family and relatives, and entertain my family members by creating fun sketches of these impressions with my brother and other siblings. Yet I never imagined that the day will come that I will make an idiot of myself publicly on the largest stage of the history of the world: “The Internet”.
By the first weeks of COVID I started to lose my mind. Going from spending all day out to have to spend every minute amongst four walls had its toll on my mental health. Yes, my mother was calling everyday to make me feel better, I called others and many others called me but that didn’t stop the fact that was losing my mind.
This was the time that started turning my head more towards social media apps like YouTube and TikTok: a software that I almost remove couple of months before that because I didn’t think is of use to me. A year before that I installed TikTok to see what’s there and it was some young people stuff that I never understood so I lost interest but I didn’t remove it for reasons I don’t know (probably fate) till the pandemic hit hard.
TikTok was a very entertaining app to watch. It was so different than the day I installed it. Much diverse of people, topics and much fun videos. A couple of months into the pandemic (May 23rd, 2020 to be specific) I posted my first TikTok video. It was a short fun-like lip-synch video about staying too many days at home (didn’t know back then it’ll be more than 14 months till I launched this web site). I published the video on Instagram and Facebook as well just because I can. I never though that people will love it that much and ask if there’s gonna more. For all I know, it was back then that the “Covedian” was born without me realizing that at the time.
By the first weeks of COVID I started to lose my mind. Going from spending all day out to have to spend every minute amongst four walls had its toll on my mental health. Yes, my mother was calling everyday to make me feel better, I called others and many others called me but that didn’t stop the fact that was losing my mind.
This was the time that started turning my head more towards social media apps like YouTube and TikTok: a software that I almost remove couple of months before that because I didn’t think is of use to me. A year before that I installed TikTok to see what’s there and it was some young people stuff that I never understood so I lost interest but I didn’t remove it for reasons I don’t know (probably fate) till the pandemic hit hard.
TikTok was a very entertaining app to watch. It was so different than the day I installed it. Much diverse of people, topics and much fun videos. A couple of months into the pandemic (May 23rd, 2020 to be specific) I posted my first video. It was a short fun-like lip-synch video about staying too many days at home (didn’t know back then it’ll be more than 14 months till I launched this web site). I published the video on Instagram and Facebook as well just because I can. I never though that people will love it that much and ask if there’s gonna more. For all I know, it was back then that the “Covedian” was born without me realizing that at the time.
Like it or not, every video after that brought more traction from people. Starting with friends and family then to strangers on all social apps I was sharing my videos on. People were (and probably still are) genuinely enjoying my videos. I got comments from friends saying things like: “I enjoy your videos very much”, “you made my day”, “I haven’t laughed like this in a long time” to “Please, keep ‘em coming”.
Yet, the most heartening praise I got was from my young niece and nephew (about 6 years old) when their mother sent me a Facebook message saying that they are my *biggest* fans. Only to follow it up couple of days later with a voice message from them saying how much they enjoy my videos and what are their favorite ones. My heart melted and I believe a shed a tear or two (which is a very rare thing to happen). A couple of months later my Mom (who returns back to calling me once a week) told me that my cousin’s daughter (I believe 5 years old or so) in Jordan, who doesn’t speak English yet also enjoys my videos as her Dad (my cousin) shows them to her on Facebook.
It was that moment that I realized: This is bigger than I thought it was! This is bigger than me. If children enjoy my stuff as much as their parents do, then it was probably something that I was meant to do. The stories of people enjoying my stuff and it makes them pass these tough days a bit easier was a bit too overwhelming to me but it made me realize that this was not about me anymore.
I have a confession to make though. All this started because I wanted to relief this enormous pandemic stress off myself. I didn’t expect, nor cared, at that time if anyone watched my videos. In other words, it was totally a selfish endeavour. Now I realize I was just a messenger who’s destined to deliver a much bigger message to the world: Smile while you can because it’s the only medicine that heals your mind.
Now I have more than 3600 amazing followers, including my friend and business partner Jim Pagiamtzis who kept supporting me with likes and shares and morever the nice, powerful and most encouraging words he tells me every time we speak on phone or in person and mostly on Teams meeting. Two of my videos went viral with one of them gaining over 1.2 million views and another with about 200k views and counting. I know now that the universe work in a way we can’t expect nor understand at some point of time but suddenly we realize that all pieces has some on in place.
On a Teams call with a sister from another mother, the amazing Elvira V. Hopper, she insisted that I should start that as something more than just random funny videos. She saw in me what I might haven’t seen yet. And while we were on a Teams call where I gave her some tips on using TikTok and she suggested that I take it to the next level. That was the time the name “Covedian” came to light.
Covedian, as you might have guessed, is a combination of two words: “COVID” and “Comedian”. It’s a name for a comedian who found his way to light at the tough times the COVID-19 pandemic. Elvira opened my eyes to something that might be a start of something much bigger, much better and much more of a gift to the universe and the people on this planet.
With that being said, I hope you guys enjoy like my website. I hope you enjoy my stuff. I won’t hurt also if you like, share and follow me to spread faun and love to as much people as you can. Let’s get through this pandemic one laugh at a time.
Hisham Qaddoumi (The Covedian)
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