Popular TikToker Farah Azra Wishes To Be A Full-Time Streamer
While Singaporean woman Farah Azra, 26, is a product designer in charge of flooring at playgrounds during the day, she is a voice-acting extraordinaire and Valorant streamer by night.
A TikTok duet she did on a whim went crazily viral, and she grew in popularity for her voices that sound like they came out of an anime.
@farah_azraaaa Imitaring an Anime character is harder 😆 #fyp #アニメ #animefyp #animevoice #日本語 #声優 #konnichiwa #summertime #anime #voiceover
As a self-taught Japanese speaker, avid singer and hijabi cosplayer, Ms Farah enjoys popularity in Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
Here’s what we’ve learnt about her recent endeavours after being invited to her cosy home in Choa Chu Kang for a catch-up.
Farah Azra shows off voice acting abilities in viral duets
Ms Farah recalls that when she was four, her rendition of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star was “so bad” that the entire class made fun of her.
Since then, her goal has been to become a great singer. She kept practising and imitating sounds from songs until age eight, recording her voice and playing it back to fix her pronunciation.
As someone who’s enjoyed anime since childhood, she also developed an interest in imitating the Japanese voices she’d hear in the shows — Hunter X Hunter is her favourite series.
Evidently, Ms Farah has a talent for imitating voices because her singing and voice acting in Japanese, which is her fourth language, are almost indistinguishable from a native speaker.
But for years, this talent was merely known to her friends.
In 2020, Ms Farah started using TikTok and came across a TikTok duet on the platform. Finding it interesting, she decided to do a duet of her own.
Little did she know, that was when her latent voice talent became unleashed on the Internet.
@farah_azraaaa #duet with @eekaru rip my neighbours HAHA #fireforce #tamakikotatsu #voiceacting #seiyuu #sgweebtok #animefyp
“I was very shocked [when the video went viral],” Ms Farah shared. She even told her mum and everyone she knew about it.
“I didn’t expect to go that viral ’cause it’s something that’d never happened to me before.”
After that, Ms Farah gradually created more content, and her follower count shot up — many enjoyed how authentic her Japanese voice acting was.
Sometimes while streaming Valorant, she’ll even do her voices on the voice communication system, garnering many surprised and impressed reactions.
TikTok then became an impetus for Ms Farah to improve her craft and start streaming.
Streams at night after working a full-time job
When Ms Farah was introduced to first-person shooter Valorant in 2020, she instantly became hooked and played the game daily.
Since she was playing the game anyway, she decided she’d stream on TikTok Live as well.
Although Ms Farah can only stream at night because of her schedule, this suits her fine since there are more viewers at night.
She’ll try to stream from 8pm to midnight every Monday to Friday, except when she’s feeling exhausted.
Of course, as an enjoyer of anime, Japanese culture, and games, much of her downtime is spent watching anime — Oshi no Ko is her favourite this season — or watching streamers, such as spicyuuu or YUYUmonster.
What’s more difficult than juggling streaming and content creation with a full-time job, however, is keeping her voice down during her streams. Because she has neighbours on either side of her flat, Ms Farah’s mum often reminded her to be quieter when streaming.
A side effect of that is expressing her frustrations using hand gestures. Somehow, she has to remain calm while not uttering a sound, so she’s become trained in controlling her frustration.
A feat, considering how frustrating Valorant can be, especially playing solo as she often does.
It probably adds to the humour of her streams as well.
“When I play games, my face moves as well. My body moves as well. I react to everything . . . [I think] people find that funny,” she said.
While many people know her for her voice acting TikToks, an increasing number also become acquainted with Valorant when she goes live.
As an introvert, Ms Farah used to feel drained after just one hour of streaming, but practice and consistency have helped raise her stamina to the point where she can stream for around four to five hours a night.
A particularly memorable regular fixture is a 12-year-old girl who would apologise when she doesn’t watch her stream.
“She’s like, oh my God, I’m so sorry, I didn’t come to your stream because I have exams, and I’d reply, don’t come here, go study,” Ms Farah laughed.
A kid told her to ‘go back to the kitchen’ once
Not all kids are as pleasant in the world of gaming, however.
One time, she was playing when a kid from Singapore told her to “go back to the kitchen”. Incredulous, she said,
It’s 2023, and we still have this kind of thing.
Obviously, the one known as CCK_KJ or Choa Chu Kang Killjoy (named after her favourite Valorant agent) wasn’t about to take it lying down.
She kept quiet, played her usual game, and when she ended the game with the most kills, she told him, “Why don’t you go back to the kitchen?”
In the end, they became ‘friends’ of sorts and even queued for another game together.
Farah Azra wants to be a full-time streamer
Ms Farah isn’t the only one in her family active on TikTok. Her 21-year-old brother Rifqi is a game developer and maker of Kampong, a horror game, on Roblox.
@ifqi.r Roblox Group: Rifly Entertainment #horror #robloxhorror #fyp #horrorgame ♬ Spooky, quiet, scary atmosphere piano songs – Skittlegirl Sound
While her dream is to make a living as a streamer, Ms Farah is still exploring other things she can do, like collaborations with other streamers.
For now, she hopes to have the time and funds for viewer events such as giveaways.
She also wants to get good enough at Valorant so she can perhaps play on a team and compete in esports events someday, although this is a secondary goal to her streaming pursuits.
Though she already has over 200,000 followers on TikTok, Ms Farah’s career as a content creator is still relatively short so far.
But with a recent contract signed with local content creators and agency Wah!Banana, she hopes to be able to spread her wings further, be it through her gaming, voice acting, or even singing.
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Featured image by MS News. Photography by Doreen Fan.
