{"id":68336,"date":"2023-11-19T17:54:00","date_gmt":"2023-11-19T17:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/talkcelnews.com\/?p=68336"},"modified":"2023-11-19T17:54:00","modified_gmt":"2023-11-19T17:54:00","slug":"i-felt-validated-and-seen-the-moment-flexmamis-life-changed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/talkcelnews.com\/lifestyle\/i-felt-validated-and-seen-the-moment-flexmamis-life-changed\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I felt validated and seen\u2019: The moment FlexMami\u2019s life changed"},"content":{"rendered":"

By <\/span>Jane Rocca<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Lillian Ahenkan wears MariamSeddiq x Sheike dress, Post Primadonna jewellery.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Jesse-Leigh Elford<\/cite><\/p>\n

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Until recently, Australian media personality Lillian Ahenkan (aka FlexMami) had mostly existed away from the mainstream gaze, preferring to share her stories on Instagram and TikTok to her 169,000 and 138,000 loyal followers respectively. But since being nominated for her first Logie Award this year, her public profile has shifted gears.<\/p>\n

Ahenkan was up for the Graham Kennedy Award for Most Popular New Talent for her co-hosting role on the Love Island Australia<\/em> spin-off show, I\u2019ve Got a Text with Josh and Flex!<\/em> \u2013 and while she didn\u2019t win, she\u2019s been a talking point ever since.<\/p>\n

Her Logies journey began with an invitation to the nomination breakfast in June, a morning she remembers fondly. \u201cI was hysterical when I heard my name called and Hamish Blake was clapping behind me,\u201d she says. \u201cI am in this room full of stars and few people of colour \u2013 and suddenly I felt validated and seen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ahenkan puts her popularity down to her approachability. She\u2019s a slashie Millennial who works across multiple platforms: a TV host, an influencer inking sponsorship deals with FIFA and McDonald\u2019s, a self-made entrepreneur, and a part-time VJ turned DJ. She is proof that the more circles you spin, the more opportunities you attract.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s written a self-empowerment book, started her own jewellery line and makes podcasts for a living. Sales of her ReFlex conversation-starter cards turn over seven figures annually. It\u2019s her no-apologies approach and comic undertone that keep her fans entertained. The fact she\u2019s occupying a space where few African-Australian women have been before isn\u2019t lost on her, either.<\/p>\n

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Commonry trousers and shirt. Post Primadonna necklace. Dinosaur Designs bangles.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Jesse-Leigh Elford<\/cite><\/p>\n

But when the Logies awards night began to approach, weeks after that nomination breakfast, her positive internal narrative started to change. \u201cThat\u2019s when the neurotic views started to creep in,\u201d she admits. \u201cWas the nomination token? Did anybody watch the show? What if I lose? The day the Logies came around, I was in a hotel room alone. I called my friends and they said, \u2018You look so out of it.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t want anyone to do my hair and make-up, so I did it myself. I didn\u2019t know if I was taking up too much space. The more room I was given, the smaller I felt. It made me so self-conscious, to be honest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ahenkan\u2019s parents migrated to Australia from Ghana a decade before she was born and split when she was three months old. Her mum raised Ahenkan and her two older brothers in Chifley, in south-east Sydney.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t know if I was taking up too much space. The more room I was given, the smaller I felt. It made me so self-conscious, to be honest.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Mum got divorced from Dad, it wasn\u2019t common or very accepting in our African Christian culture,\u201d she says. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t seen as a good thing but, as a result, I grew up with a strong matriarchal force and Mum had to figure it out for herself along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her mother was employed as a commercial cleaner, and Ahenkan recalls tagging along with her to work because her mum couldn\u2019t afford a babysitter to mind her and her siblings after hours.<\/p>\n

While many of Sydney\u2019s Ghanaian community live in the city\u2019s west, Ahenkan says being in the east shifted perceptions in their migrant circles. \u201cThat really set us apart,\u201d she says. \u201cMum didn\u2019t speak any English when she arrived in Australia. She found the experience isolating. The nature of living in commission housing and not knowing your neighbours was foreign to her, and having no community to lean on was very different to what she knew of life back home.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut Mum made sure to craft a clear narrative about where we are from, as opposed to understanding blackness from a very Australian way,\u201d says Ahenkan. \u201cThat has remained part of me to this day.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s perhaps this resilience that set the foundational roots for Ahenkan. She\u2019s the reason FlexMami has such a powerful narrative: curating content with a conscience and ever mindful of inclusivity. She aligns with brands that reflect her values because authenticity matters. But right now, she\u2019s feeling the weight of representing black women in media added to her invisible workload.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember a few instances when Mum tried to drill down the concept of race to me as a teenager,\u201d she explains. \u201cI didn\u2019t really think she had to because in my mind, when we were at church every Sunday and hanging with our Ghanaian people, what was there to understand?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Common Hours dress. Mariam Seddiq x Sheike \u201cBeck\u201d top and skirt.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Jesse-Leigh Elford<\/cite><\/p>\n

\u201cThe older I get, the more I realise how intrinsic Mum has been in my life. It was only when I stepped outside that community that I realised what Mum told me was true: that other people will judge me by the colour of my skin and not as a person with a personality. That was a realisation I had to have.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was during year 10 at Randwick Girls\u2019 High School that Ahenkan began exploring different subcultures online. She was into punk and rock music, and wore heavy eyeliner, black jeans and black boots. \u201cMy look matched the music I listened to, and I was finding these external ways to find my identity,\u201d she says. She was the only African at the school for years, and bonded with the girls from Italian, Greek, Samoan, Indonesian and Korean backgrounds.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a gap in my front teeth which I hated as a teenager. I complained about it a lot. Mum said that in our culture it\u2019s a sign of prosperity.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Ahenkan has learned how to turn Western body-shaming into a positive, encouraging others to embrace themselves without judgment, the teen version of herself did have hang-ups. \u201cI have a gap in my front teeth which I hated as a teenager,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI fixated and complained about it a lot. Mum said that in our culture it\u2019s a sign of prosperity and good luck, it\u2019s a beautiful feature, but teenage me didn\u2019t think so. One day, Mum came home from the dentist with a gap shaved out in her teeth. She did it because the service was available, and possibly to prove a point to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Commonry jacket and skirt. Post Primadonna rings. Louise Olsen earrings.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Jesse-Leigh Elford<\/cite><\/p>\n

Ahenkan only just passed year 12, dampening any hope of studying law or psychology, and took up jobs in retail for 12 months, including a stint in a pizza shop. She enrolled in a TAFE fashion business course, but it didn\u2019t excite her. Next came an internship at a public relations agency, which led to a part-time job. It piqued her interest to explore creating content that fused her identity with the mechanics of PR.<\/p>\n

The 29-year-old, who now lives in Melbourne, has spent the past 10 years building an influential social-media profile. She empowers others through body-positive conversations and shares everything from impulse fashion purchases to rental woes, and whether she\u2019s dying her eyebrows blonde to match her platinum hair.<\/p>\n

Her \u201cwow\u201d factor has led to collaborations with make-up brands such as Fenty, Mecca and Rimmel, and she once created a plus-sized range with clothing brand Nasty Gal.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s her fast-talking sassiness that led her there \u2013 few can dissect the dating show Love Island<\/i> like FlexMami, providing honest discussions about race and dating. And Millennials love nothing more than a brutal take-down of what\u2019s really happening in reality TV.<\/p>\n

The former Big Brother<\/em> contestant \u2013 she survived two episodes in 2021 \u2013 says for now it\u2019s all eyes on podcasting and focusing on living, rather than being viewed via the curated content on her social media posts. With Lucinda Price \u2013 a writer, presenter and comedian \u2013 she co-presents the popular iHeart national drive podcast Flex & Froomes<\/i>, which was named one of Vogue<\/i>\u2019s \u201c10 Best Podcasts for Women by Women\u201d in 2022.<\/p>\n

For someone who never thought she\u2019d land a job in media, Ahenkan still pinches herself. \u201cThe opportunities that exist for me now are because of the hard work that other people of colour have done before me,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Mariam Seddiq x Sheike \u201cFrankie\u201d top. Louise Olsen earrings.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Jesse-Leigh Elford<\/cite><\/p>\n

But she\u2019s also looking at her bigger picture with a critical thinking cap on. \u201cI didn\u2019t go to university so, if there was no Instagram tomorrow, would I still have any relevance? What if there were no TV jobs for me? What would I do? That\u2019s why I have worked across multiple platforms, from my conversation cards to building equity for myself beyond one category.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not about how can I stay relevant forever, it\u2019s about recognising your value if it gets taken away from you. I seriously don\u2019t know anybody in media who has the same start as me. Right now, I am figuring out what my interests, needs and wants are outside this world of \u2018likes\u2019. I have funnelled every opportunity into a career move. I want to look at life with a personal lens now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ahenkan says she\u2019s trying to pull back and see a separation between work and herself. \u201cI don\u2019t know how to take pictures of experiences without the lens of posting it on Instagram!\u201d she says, laughing. \u201cIt\u2019s a scary thought. I view myself as something to be consumed and I want to live my life as me, myself and I.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fashion editor, Penny McCarthy; Hair, Brad Mullins using Oribe\/R+Co\/Sachajuan; Make-up, Heidi Scarlett King using MAC Cosmetics; Fashion assistant, Jaya Prisco.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Stockists Common Hours; Commonry Dinosaur Designs; Louise Olsen; Mariam Seddiq x Sheike; Post Primadonna <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Make the most of your health, relationships, fitness and nutrition with our<\/i><\/b> Live Well newsletter<\/i><\/b>. <\/i><\/b>Get it in your inbox every Monday<\/i><\/b>.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

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