The media of tomorrow: Inside the world of Malaysian esports
The rise of esports is just as much about a new world of gameplay as it is the birth of a new form of entertainment, explains What’s The Meta Today’s founder Mariah Ahmad.
Takeaways
While growth is critical for startups, Mariah isn’t afraid to take things slowly. By focusing on each aspect of her startup individually, she feels she is better able to provide her base with the meaningful, high-quality content they deserve.
Many of Mariah’s successes have come from her love for experimentation in media. In fact, it was this very passion that inspired her to start What’s The Meta Today in the first place.
Mariah’s work goes beyond content that is passively consumed. As a key influencer in esports media, she has found success using her platform to create meaningful impact in the professional gaming ecosystem.
“I don’t want to do it (scale) just to do it. I want to create memories and make it meaningful. Because at the end of the day, what kind of narrative do you want to give to your audience?”
Context
Mariah Ahmad is already living in the future of media. As the founder of Malaysian esports startup What’s The Meta Today, her work covering pro-gaming is paving the way for an entirely new field of sports reporting.
After receiving an undergraduate degree in journalism, Mariah spent four years working at the prominent Malaysian news channel AstroAWANI where she covered esports and worked as a social media producer.
Realizing how quickly esports articles rose to the top of engagement charts, Mariah left her job in 2019 to dive into esports media headfirst. Only 1.5 years later, Mariah has already built a huge community of esports fans across Malaysia — and she’s only just getting started.
Building an esports startup
Since starting What’s The Meta Today in early 2019, Mariah has grown a large social media following across numerous platforms (eg. 150k followers on Instagram, 54k subscribers, YouTube).
“When we talk about followers, we need to talk about the quality of followers too,” says Mariah.
Mariah’s followers include both the current and former Malaysian Ministers of Youth and Sports, as well as a national football coach — a testament to the strong engagement she has been able to spark from even those who are more tangentially aligned with her work.
At the PUBG Mobile World League competition this summer (for the non-gamers, PUBG Mobile is a game and World League is a tournament), Mariah began to realize the power of her platform to help positively shape the world of esports by telling the stories of competing Malaysian and Indonesian teams .
‘It’s really overwhelming, but it’s nice to see that people want more. It shows that you’re on the right path,” she said.
What’s next
With a strong community, healthy numbers, and well-earned respect, Mariah seems perfectly positioned to expand her startup (she talked a lot about Indonesia as the next logical market).
Yet while events, merchandise, and a broader region of coverage may all be in What’s The Meta Today’s future, Mariah feels no rush.
Before scaling further, she wants to spend some time continuing to build loyalty with her audience.
Mariah also wants to demonstrate the “glory of journalism” through esports. She says she’ll need to bring on the right talent to help produce more content (she currently has one writer, who happens to be 18-years-old).