Live-stream mum learns to block out trolls and not overshare

SINGAPORE – Three months after she started live-streaming on TikTok in 2024, Ms Natalia Rajahmany, 34, changed her profile name owing to the negativity she encountered.

She recalls how she would start her TikTok Live in a good mood, but it would quickly get derailed by comments posted by strangers.

“Why don’t you get a full-time job?”, “Why don’t you wash plates at the coffee shop?”, “I know why your husband left you” and “Your son is autistic because of you” were some of the nasty comments she received.

Ms Natalia, who has shared about her life online, says: “When I started live-streaming, I was still healing from my divorce. When I got a hate comment, I would be triggered. I ended up screaming, ‘Do you even know me? At least I’m trying to do something here.’ I don’t do that now.”

In December 2024, she changed her nickname on TikTok, where she has 11,100 followers, from “Natalia Raj” to “Grumpy Amma”, which means “mother” in Tamil, reflecting her mood then. Her social media handle, @natalia.raj, still appears in small font on her account. The majority of her sales come from her live streams.

It was a rocky start to her new career, but she is determined to stay the course.

She had been a stay-at-home mother before her divorce was finalised in September 2024, and she needed to support herself and her children. Her daughter Gavriela is five years old, while her son, Immanuel, who has severe autism, is seven.

It was also challenging finding flexible work that would allow her to take care of her children.

She says: “I don’t really have any educational background. For me to create a career for myself is quite tough.”

After failing her O levels, she did various jobs, such as working as an IT salesperson and a pre-school assistant. From 2022 until she started live-streaming in September 2024, she worked part-time as a food delivery rider. Wobbly and uncertain on a bike, she used an adult tricycle to work from 9pm to 3am, snatching less than three hours of sleep before her children woke up at 6am.

“The lifestyle affected my mental state and I didn’t want to vent my emotions on my kids. I wanted to work from home, but I didn’t think I could find such jobs easily, especially if they needed a diploma or a degree,” she says.

Ms Natalia was also thinking of the future.

“When everything came crumbling down, I realised I had nothing. I had no money, no appreciation, no acknowledgement. I felt the fire, the need to do something about it.

“I had nothing to leave my children. I thought, if I had a company of my own, maybe I could leave it to my daughter. If she ends up like me, at least she has something to fall back on,” she says. Her son will likely need long-term care and assistance and may not be able to work and live independently.

Becoming an entrepreneur

As her six-year marriage broke down, she researched on Google and YouTube how to make deodorants for sensitive skin because she has an inflammatory skin condition, hidradenitis suppurativa.

Cold-calling and eventually working with factories in China, she produced her own Ela Beauty brand of aluminium-free deodorants with ingredients such as cedar, grapefruit and sandalwood essential oils and shea butter.

She registered her company, Ela Beauty Heaven, in 2024. When she embarked on live-streaming, she started selling her deodorants, now her bestsellers, before branching out to include hair oil and skincare items. The various products retail at less than $30 each.

She is surprised that she became an entrepreneur: “If you ask me, I feel very amazed at myself.”

However, live-streaming is a double-edged sword.

She is thankful that she can live-stream from the living room of her Housing Board rental flat in Tampines when her children are at school, asleep or being babysat by her mother, a retired aircraft cleaner. But she is feeling the effects of spending hours online trying to engage viewers.

Ms Natalia says: “It’s my rice bowl. I don’t know what I would do without this. I am grateful for it.”

When she started out, she was live-streaming for 12 hours overnight, getting by with little sleep as she tried to close as many sales as she could before stopping to cook breakfast for the kids.

This continued until her body broke down a few months in. Feeling weak and nauseated, she stopped work and called a Grab car to take her children to her mother’s HDB flat in Marine Parade where she collapsed on a sofa. Her mother sprinkled water on her face to revive her.

She was ill for a week, waking only when she needed to eat. She now does daily live streams for up to four hours during the day and four hours at night.

“I’m self-employed. It’s about how much I make in a day so that I get enough for the month. How nice would it be if you did two hours of work and earned $100? That would be great,” she says, adding that she takes time off only once every three or four months, or if she falls sick. She earns $3,000 a month on average.

She still does not get much sleep. Once, she fell asleep for an hour while live-streaming, waking up to comments urging her to log off and take care of her health.

When speaking to her audience on the live stream for hours, it is sometimes hard to know what to talk about. She extols the benefits of her products and engages in conversation with willing viewers, asking them: “Have you eaten? Have you watched this movie?”

She has talked about inflation and other topics of the day, shared about accidentally using dog shampoo and tried sushi for the first time while on a live stream.

“Sometimes, you have to do a bit of narration. If you’re faking it, people will just know,” she says.

She thinks live-streaming can be psychologically unhealthy.

“It can be addictive, like gaming. It’s too much screen time for an adult. You’re exposing your personal space to many people you don’t know. It’s very insecure. You’re not in a private space any more.”

To regain some privacy and have more storage space for packing supplies which had overrun her flat, she decided to rent an office space near Aljunied MRT station two months ago.

She live-streams at night from the 225 sq ft space, which costs $1,900 a month, while her mother watches over her kids at home.

While she has long learnt to mute toxic remarks on TikTok, they still drain her.

When she has a meal while doing a Live, for instance, she gets asked if she is pregnant. “That’s the only time I can eat, sometimes,” she says.

Feeling vulnerable is an occupational hazard.

“From the beginning, my audience have known that I have two kids; they’ve seen them on screen. I’ve had questions like, ‘Where is the father?’ Sometimes, I provide updates so they don’t keep asking,” she says. “Or people ask, ‘Why are you not answering us?’

“As a live streamer, you cannot complain. You should be ready for it,” she adds.

“I think it’s too late to not overshare. Sometimes, I’m venting because I don’t have a lot of friends. It’s like my second home right now.”