Welcome To Xevi's (TikTok) Universe

If you scroll Instagram or TikTok, chances are you've encountered an anime avatar of Gojo Satoru, a powerful, white-haired sorcerer from Gege Akutami's popular manga Jujutsu Kaisen. But that anime avatar isn't actually Gojo; it's popular history buff and internet yapper XeviUniverse.

With over three million followers across Instagram and TikTok, the LA-based content creator can sure talk a lot, and that's what makes him so well-liked.

See, he's something of a "yapper," a person who can keep a conversation going without any effort. This is no shade, as yapping has become incredibly popular on the internet, with creators often filming themselves talking about nothing special for seconds, minutes, or hours at a time. What separates XeviUniverse from the rest of the yappers online, though, is the focus and structure of his content. He isn't just yapping to be yapping; he's yapping interesting facts about interesting people, like former criminal Colton Harris Moore and rap icon Cornell "Nelly" Haynes Jr. However, XeviUniverse wasn't always doing this; he was actually trying to get into music, but things didn't pan out that way—and now, here he is, yapping.

Complex sat down with the popular content creator to talk about yapping, his musical ambitions, history, and storytelling on a short-form app TikTok.

(This interview has been edited and shortened for clarity.)

Tell me a little bit about yourself. What is XeviUniverse?

XeviUniverse: Yeah, I started off pre-Med. I was about to go to medical school and then I said, ‘You know what? Screw it. I don't want to do this anymore. I want to do something else.’ I then started doing music. XeviUniverse initially started off as a music thing. I thought, ‘I'm going to be the biggest artist in the world.’ That didn't really work out.

Were you making beats? You were trying to rap?

I was making beats, rapping—doing everything. I still make music, and I'm trying to circle back, but I got too busy with the social media stuff. But yeah, I'm doing the whole nine: making beats, recording on my own music, all that. I feel like my music was decent, so I started making TikToks to promote the music, but that wasn't working. Eventually, I started making music livestreams to make some money.

So I was rating people's music on live, and that turned into me posting videos about those livestreams. People then started enjoyed my personality, so I began making livestreams about other things, like different anime, rap versus battles—things like that. People kept enjoying my content and personality, so I started posting about my life. That started taking off a little bit, and then I randomly talked about Nelly one day. You're not that young, are you? You know who Nelly is?

I had a whole phase where I wore the bandaid on my cheek.

[laughs] So, I started talking about Nelly and his music. That video kind of took off, so I was like, ‘Okay, let me start talking about other people.’ I enjoy talking about that stuff. I enjoy history. I enjoy super random facts. That’s just my thing, but I didn't think other people enjoyed that. I just started trying it out and that, I guess it just took off. I made a whole video about Bruce Lee, and that blew up.

Bruce Lee is dope.

Yeah, Bruce Lee is dope, right? It was the same thing as the Nelly video. So I was like, ‘You know what, other people might think Bruce Lee is dope.’ I posted a video talking about Bruce Lee's life, and that video skyrocketed. So I was like, ‘Okay, cool, people mess with random facts like myself, and that kind of started XeviUniverse.

What does your research look like for your TikToks? How long does it take? What is that process of finding a topic, researching it, putting the video together, and posting that online?

XU: So it used to be pretty simple: just off the top, stories I completely knew. But then it got to a point where you mess up a fact a tiny bit and you get hate and 20 percent of your comments are, ‘I knew it. You don't know anything. There was this one specific mistake. I said 50 Cent linked with a rapper in LA named Eminem. Now, I didn't mean Eminem was from LA, but he was based out of LA at the time.

However, the top comment was like, ‘You think Eminem is from Los Angeles, California?’ You know how people get online. I got DMs of people saying, ‘I really enjoyed the video, but when you said Eminem was from Los Angeles, it showed me that you don't really know anything.’ That made me become more careful with my words; I can't even make the tiniest mistakes. So I started doing extensive research to make sure I knew the stuff so well that there can't be any mistakes.

Basically I read everything. If there’s a documentary, I watch that. And if they're all saying the same thing, then that’s how I know for sure the story is solid. If they're saying things slightly differently, then from all the stuff I've researched, I have to figure out what makes the most sense. But it does take a little while. I'm not going to lie.

I was in the comments of your videos, and a lot of people really love the way you tell stories, and especially the “See, blank had a problem.” They’re always like, ‘See blank had a problem? I am sat.’ How did you develop that sort of storytelling cadence?

XU: It’s actually an incredible story…just kidding. [laughs] I have no idea. I really don't know. People kind of made that a thing. Shout out to the people, to the fans that watch the videos. But yeah, I don't know why I started saying that. It wasn't even a thing of me being like, ‘Oh, I got to have one of those intro things. I got to make something.’ I just started saying it and I just kept saying it, and I guess people loved it.

I think on my second or third time, that's when people made it a thing. That's when I was like, ‘Oh, okay, this will be a thing. Because when I made a video one time without saying, ‘See, blank had a problem’, my comments were like, ‘Why didn't you say your thing?’

I love that. Were you always a storyteller? And did you think that that storytelling cadence would translate well to social media?

XU: Yeah, I think I've always been like that. It might be a Senegalese family thing. My mom's really good at telling stories. My siblings are pretty good at telling stories. I never thought it’d translate over to social media, though. It’s just how I speak. Like, the first video I made talking about my life and doing stuff like that was like how everybody makes their videos. It was just me, a camera in front of my face and just, like, saying the video. My sister was like, ‘That's not you.’ I thought, with social media, you got to put on on face, a facade. You know what I'm saying? She's like, ‘Nah, just talk like you're talking to me on FaceTime.’ The next video I made was literally just me talking how I talk to my family. At that point, it was seven, eight years of me trying to do music or trying to do anything to make some cash.

I was broken down completely.

So I was just making videos and didn't care what happened. As soon as my sister said that, I was like, ‘All right, you know what? If anything happens with this, it's just going to have to be the least effort ever. I have to put this camera in front of my face, speak how I normally speak, and post with putting on a face’ And it seemed to work out.

Are there any topics you've researched but you couldn't make a video for?

XU: That's a good question. So usually for the ones that I research I do, but there's a lot of stories I could not do that I've thought about doing. There's also a lot of stories people have asked me to do that I definitely can’t always do. Part of it is that TikTok is a little careful about what you post. Like, if it's about sexual assault and stuff like that, I try to talk about those kinds of stories, but I just have to super careful and super center because that's important to speak about.

Here’s an example: murderers or serial killers. A lot of people want me to do stories about that stuff. I tend to avoid those stories completely because there's humor in my videos, and with those stories, there's no point where I can make a humorous comment. Assault is the same way. But, for instance, I made a video about Vince McMahon. That's an intense one that's about assault. But if you watch the video, you'll understand how, at some points, I can make light about it, where I could talk about this, that, and the third. But then when I get to the part where I’m talking about the serious cases and what he's done, that's when I lock in and get serious. When it comes to serial killers, there's no space. When it comes to specific people in history with mustaches, people want to see that story, but those are a little more difficult.

Is a Hitler story one of the most requested in your comments?

XU: I'm so trained by TikTok. [laughs] I could say the word “Hitler.” I did a story on Hitler a long time ago, but that was when I was making history-based content. There isn't a specific, most requested one. It’s really just a bunch of people being like, Talk about this, talk about that.

I'm sure you, being on TikTok, being a creator, being online, are familiar with “yapping.” Do you consider yourself a yapper?

XU: Funnily enough, I'm not the most online person. I post a video and I turn the app straight off. I'm not on TikTok. I don't really watch YouTube videos like that. I’m definitely not on Instagram. I'm not terminally online, but I'm not the most knowledgeable person about yapping, but it's like when people just put the camera and talk?

Essentially. Yeah, they talk about themselves or talk about current events or whatever. It's really just nonstop talking.

XU: [laughs] Oh, okay. Well, whatever the people say I do is what I'm going to say I do. So if they say I'm yapping, then I'm yapping. I don't think I'm yapping. Am I yapping? Yeah, I be yapping in general, so I guess the answer is yes. I'm yapping about yapping. Come on, now.

That's so meta.

XU: [laughs] Yeah, yeah. That's peak yap.

What is a favorite story you've done so far?

XU: That's a good question. There's a few, actually, but just off the top of my head? There’s a history story about Marie Antoinette and a guy who stole her jewels. Another one was Tiger Woods's wife. There's a few other ones, but I can't think of them off the top of my head.

What's been the craziest or funniest DM you've gotten?

XU: There was a guy who said he wanted to eat me in my DMs. He's like, ‘Where do you live?’ He really wanted to straight-up eat me.I guarantee you from the other stuff he said he wasn't joking. I'm not get into what else he said to me, but I know he was serious about that.

You are a big history buff. Favorite period in history and then favorite historical figure?

XU: Favorite period in history would have to be now because we get to look back at all the terrible, terrible times. I'm telling you, everything that started with the number 19 and below, not good. It's not ideal now and all that, but man, I ain't a slave. So at the very least we can walk into a restaurant and we can eat there. So shout out to the folks before us because they did what they had to do for us to get here.

As for the second part of the question: All the Black people.

Very that.