Leisha Patidar on viral football reel, creator pressure and why trends alone do not build communities

New Delhi: For years, beauty creators were expected to stay inside the familiar box of makeup, skincare, styling and transitions. Mumbai-based content creator Leisha Patidar’s viral FIFA-themed series worked because it broke that box without abandoning her core audience. The series was not about a creator suddenly chasing football for reach. It was about a beauty creator using sport as a visual language, turning country flags and football fandom into makeup-led content at a time when football conversations were peaking online. View this post on Instagram A post shared by leishapatidar🎈 (@leishapatidarrr) Speaking to BuzzInContent, Patidar said she had been creating content for six-and-a-half years and did not expect a football-linked reel to become one of her most widely noticed moments. “I love combining beauty with anything people don’t even expect,” she said. “Instead of just supporting the team in a traditional way, I wanted to create makeup looks inspired by different countries’ flags.” Patidar has been making social media content since 2020, but her FIFA 2026 series pushed her beyond the beauty and fashion audience she had built over the years. Started on June 9, one of the videos from the series fetched more than 27.6 million organic views within 18 hours. Built around makeup transformations, international football stars and an upbeat track, the videos travelled across borders and drew comments from football fans from different parts of the world. For Patidar, that was when she realised the experiment had worked. The series was not just another beauty transition format. It showed how a creator could use sport without moving away from her core content identity. Watch the full spotlight video with Patidar here: Patidar, who has over 1 million followers, started creating beauty content during the Covid lockdown after completing Class 12. She was in Jaipur with her family at the time and began experimenting with makeup looks using a small set of products. “I had like five products in my vanity and I created around 12 looks. From there I started creating beauty content,” she said. Her journey, however, was not without criticism. Patidar said she faced negative comments early on because of her skin tone. “I am a dusky skin tone girl from India. I used to get a lot of hate in my comment section about me being dusky and why I should do makeup,” she said. She said the criticism affected her initially, but her audience helped her continue. “There are girls who find me their inspiration and who started their content creation journey. There were times when I used to think bad about myself, but now I don’t care what negative comment people are going to pass,” she said. The football connection, she said, was not artificial. Patidar grew up around male cousins who followed sports closely. “I was the only girl child in my family. I had five to seven brothers and cousins. They always used to talk about football, cricket or other sports in front of me,” she said. The idea for the FIFA reel came after she attended the IPL final in Ahmedabad and came across football-related content online. She said she shot the content despite being unwell. “I had 103 fever. I was super sick. But after looking at the videos, nobody told me that I was looking sick. I was enjoying that moment,” she said. Patidar believes the reel worked because it brought beauty and sport into one frame. “After posting about FIFA, I got a massive following from men. It combined two genres together and created something new,” she said. On the wider creator economy, Patidar said creators cannot depend only on trends. While the first few seconds of a video matter, she said the audience also looks for originality. “You need to be your authentic self to capture those first three seconds or else people will scroll,” she said. “There will be 15 or 20 trends coming in a week. You cannot hop on every single one just to be relevant.” She said her own focus has been on transitions, fashion and makeup, but she now wants to expand into lifestyle, travel, food and YouTube vlogs. “I don’t want to be stuck in one place with one genre. I want to explore and try new things,” she said. Patidar also said brand collaborations have become more selective than before, especially in beauty. “Earlier, it wasn’t hard to get a lot of brand deals. Now brands have become very picky about whom they want to work with and what benefit they are getting out of it,” she said. She added that creators also need to choose partnerships carefully. “I personally work with brands that align with my audience and my authenticity,” she said. Asked whether agencies matter for creators, Patidar said they do, especially because one person cannot manage everything alone. “A creator is creating, editing, styling and being behind the camera. You need somebody to support you beyond that, for brands or bigger opportunities,” she said. Patidar said she has been managed by Monk Entertainment since the beginning of her career and called it a good experience. She also pushed back against the assumption that content creation is easy because creators receive products and brand opportunities. “People see that we get a lot of rewards, but everybody is working really hard. Even if it is just a normal storytelling video or a fashion video, people are putting in effort,” she said. For her FIFA content, she said one video took eight hours to shoot and the full set of looks was completed over three days. “People don’t know that part of your side. They can easily say anything, but you know it, God knows it and your team knows it,” she said. Looking ahead, Patidar said she wants to build something beyond social media and explore a business venture, though she did not share details. “Content creation will always be a part of me. But I really want to evolve and try something new,” she said. She also said she is open to acting opportunities in web series or films. For now, Patidar said consistency remains central to her journey. “I don’t think there was one turning point. It was overall consistency. I have been working since I was 17. Just showing up every single day, even if you don’t feel like it,” she said. Asked to choose between a viral reel and a loyal community, Patidar said: “A viral reel with my loyal community.”