My name is Aly Mohamed, and my journey as a digital creator began in 2023 with something very simple: my love for The Lion King.
Today, I have built a community of more than 50,000 followers on TikTok, 20,000 on Instagram, 3,000 on Threads and more than 10,000 YouTube subscribers.
But my journey didn’t begin with success.
It began with terrible edits, sleepless nights, mistakes, a stolen account and the painful experience of watching months of work disappear.
And somehow, losing almost everything became one of the things that made me stronger.
Table of Contents
How My Digital Creator Journey Started
I didn’t begin as a talented video editor.
No one does.
I was terrible.
I was very bad.
My journey started on an ordinary day when I was scrolling through TikTok and came across an emotional Lion King edit.
It affected me so much that I closed TikTok and decided to watch The Lion King (1994) again.
I wanted to relive the emotions I remembered from childhood.
After watching it, I realised something I hadn’t known before.
The Lion King franchise was much bigger than I thought.
I didn’t even know The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride existed because it was released on home video rather than receiving a traditional cinema release.
So I watched it.
I loved it.
Then I started searching for The Lion King 2 edits.
Eventually, I discovered edits from another childhood favourite of mine, The Lion Guard.
That sent me down another rabbit hole.
I decided to rewatch the entire show.
And after finishing it, I thought:
Why don’t I start making edits too?
So I did.
From Templates to Creating My Own Edits
At first, I made small edits.
Sometimes I used templates because I was still learning.
But eventually, I realised something:
The edits weren’t as satisfying when I was simply using someone else’s work.
I wanted to create something that was genuinely mine.
So I started learning.
I kept experimenting.
I kept posting.
I kept improving.
I posted almost every day.
Then something happened that gave me a reason to believe I could actually build something.
I reached 1,000 followers on TikTok.
It might not sound like a huge number today, but to me, it meant everything.
It showed me that people were watching.
People were connecting with what I created.
And most importantly, I realised I had a chance.
I could continue growing.
I could improve my skills.
I could prove myself in the community.
When One Viral Edit Changed Everything
In August 2023, a few days after one of my edits went viral and I reached 10,000 followers on Instagram, I made a new friend.
She would eventually become one of the most important people in my journey—for both the better and the worst.
At first, our friendship was ordinary.
Then she told me she was from Egypt, just like me.
That immediately gave us something in common.
Over the next few weeks, our friendship grew.
We started talking every day.
Sometimes almost nonstop.
But as the friendship became stronger, I started spending less time editing.
Then she offered to help.
She asked if she could create some edits for me, send them to me, and let me post them.
At first, I thought this would be a huge help.
So I agreed.
She started making more edits.
I posted them.
Then her edits began going viral.
Everything seemed normal.
Until one day, she asked me for access to my account.
She said it was about trust.
She wanted to test whether I trusted her.
I refused.
I had only known her for three months.
Why would I give someone my password?
Months passed.
She asked again.
And again.
Then one night, while I was on vacation, she asked again.
It was around 4 a.m.
I was tired.
I was barely keeping up with messages and everything happening on my accounts.
She told me she had many edits ready and that logging into my account would make things easier than sending everything to me.
I felt pressured.
So I gave her my email and password.
Then I went to sleep.
I had no idea what I would wake up to.
“Your Email Has Been Changed”
When I woke up, I checked my phone.
Then I saw the notification.
“Your email has been changed.”
The password had also been changed.
I had been locked out of my own accounts.
Everything I had built suddenly felt like it was gone.
I skipped breakfast.
I couldn’t think about anything else.
I just wanted to fix what had happened.
I tried logging back in.
Again.
And again.
And again.
I kept failing.
Eventually, I managed to regain access using Instagram’s two-factor authentication (2FA).
Thankfully, I had my email linked to the account.
That extra layer of security helped me get back in.
When I finally recovered my Instagram and TikTok accounts, I discovered that a huge amount of my content was gone.
Months of Work Disappeared
Days.
Weeks.
Months of work.
Gone.
Hundreds of TikTok videos had disappeared, including edits that had gone viral.
All those hours spent editing.
All those sleepless nights.
All those moments when I chose to keep working instead of sleeping.
It felt like someone had erased part of my journey.
I was fortunate that Instagram had a Recently Deleted feature that allowed me to recover many of the videos that had been deleted.
TikTok didn’t have the same feature for me at the time.
So much of what I had built there was simply gone.
Even my username was changed.
I had to wait an entire month before I could change it back.
And even then, someone else had taken the username I had used before, kioncub.
I changed it to .kioncub.
Then the username situation kept changing for almost a year.
At one point, I couldn’t even settle on a username that felt like it represented me.
It was frustrating.
But I kept going.
I Decided to Work Alone
After everything happened, I made a decision.
I would work alone.
I didn’t give up on TikTok.
If anything, I became even more motivated.
I wanted to improve my skills.
I wanted to learn how to create better content.
And I wanted to prove to myself that I could rebuild without depending on someone else to maintain my creative identity.
I confronted her about what happened.
She denied it.
She said her phone had been hacked.
But I didn’t believe her.
When I felt certain that she wasn’t telling me the truth, I blocked her.
For a while, that was the end of the story.
Or so I thought.
The Apology That Came Years Later
At the beginning of 2026, she sent me a very long message.
She told me how much she regretted what she had done.
She admitted that she had been selfish.
She said life had taught her a lot.
She had also made online friends who eventually did similar things to her—and even worse.
This time, she seemed genuinely interested in repairing our relationship.
But things had changed.
I had already found better friends.
Friends I now consider family.
Sometimes people leave your life and later return with an apology.
You can accept the apology without giving them the same place in your life again.
What Losing My Accounts Taught Me
Losing my accounts taught me lessons I will never forget.
1. Don’t Give Someone Your Password Because You Trust Them
Trust is not a reason to give someone complete access to your digital identity.
You can trust someone and still have boundaries.
Your account belongs to you.
Protect it.
2. Use Two-Factor Authentication
My experience showed me how important 2FA and account security can be.
Two-factor authentication gave me another way to prove that I was the legitimate owner of my account.
If you are a content creator, don’t wait until something goes wrong before securing your accounts.
3. Losing Your Content Doesn’t Mean Losing Your Ability to Create
This was probably the biggest lesson.
Someone could take away my videos.
They could change my username.
They could delete months of content.
But they couldn’t take away what I had learned.
My skills were still mine.
And as long as I could create, I could rebuild.
4. Your Community Is Bigger Than Your Account
An account is valuable.
But it isn’t your entire identity.
The people who genuinely support your work can follow you again.
The skills you’ve developed stay with you.
Your creativity stays with you.
Your story stays with you.
5. Setbacks Can Make You More Independent
Before losing my accounts, I relied on someone else to help maintain my content.
Afterwards, I became more independent.
I learned to rely on my own skills.
I became more intentional about my creative identity.
Sometimes the setback you never wanted forces you to become the person you needed to become.
Three Years Later, I Am Still Creating
Now, three years after losing my accounts, I have never stopped learning.
I’ve grown into a recognised editor within my community—not because everything went perfectly, but because I refused to stop.
Today, I have:
- 50,000+ followers on TikTok
- 20,000+ followers on Instagram
- 3,000+ followers on Threads
- 10,000+ subscribers on YouTube
Threads is particularly interesting because I reached 3,000 followers without even posting anything.
That was when I decided to take the platform seriously and start posting regularly.
And YouTube?
Passing 10,000 subscribers was something I once only dreamed about.
Now I’ve done it.
I Started as a Terrible Editor
When I look back at where I started, I almost can’t believe how far I’ve come.
I was a terrible editor.
I was learning everything from scratch.
Then someone took away a huge part of what I had built.
I lost almost everything.
But I didn’t lose myself.
I didn’t lose my ability to create.
I didn’t lose the lessons I had learned.
And I didn’t lose the determination that made me start in the first place.
Losing my accounts didn’t end my story.
It became part of what made me who I am today.
Now I’ve come further than I ever imagined.
And I’m not finished.
I’m still learning.
I’m still creating.
And I’m still building.