When Sabrina Bahsoon, 22, filmed her first TikTok in August, she had no idea what was going to happen. At that point she was a Law graduate from Durham University, whose family had all moved back to Malaysia and were asking her what she was doing in London alone, without a job.
“After law school, I was sick of doing things I didn’t want to do,” she tells me. “The unhappiness made me think, what’s my purpose? What am I doing with my life? I was trying to find ways to be creative and express myself more, authentically. So, I turned to TikTok.”
One day, when Bahsoon was on the Tube, listening to music like always, she felt the wind coming through the Tube, and realised it ‘felt like a music video.’ That was when she decided to effectively make her own, filming herself dancing to Nicki Minaj, fully moving her entire body and mouthing the lyrics.
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She posted it on TikTok, and two weeks later, it went completely viral. The name ‘Tube Girl’ is now fully her own, and the hashtag has had over a billion views on TikTok. It’s partly because Bahsoon’s energy is so infectious – but it’s also mainly because most of us just can’t get over the fact that she doesn’t care what the other people on the Tube think about her when she’s filming.
“It isn’t enough to make me nervous,” she shrugs. “I don’t care if people I don’t know are there. I’ll act unhinged – I don’t care. I’ve stopped caring about what other people think for a while – I’m going to live my life.” But was she always this confident?! How does she do it? And how can we?
“I wasn’t always this way,” she admits. "You have to have self-love and appreciate yourself and what you can do. I am smart and analytical and beautiful. I have a good personality. Admitting that to yourself is really hard because people will tell you otherwise when you say it out loud.
“I had to work on that the whole time in university and after that, I was like, I want to get into fashion and music. I want to have confidence. I didn’t come from anything close to these industries. I was doing a law degree. Rihanna says fake it till you make it, so I was like, I have to act.”
She managed to stop faking it a while before her TikTok videos, which means her confidence in those videos is all natural. It’s inspiring a whole new host of women – and men – who are posting their own ‘Tube Girl’ videos in an effort to beat social anxiety. “It’s the best part to come out of all this,” says Bahsoon. "A lot of social media trends aren’t so deep in that way. I’m so glad men are getting over the toxic masculinity and being macho, and just living their life on the Tube.
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“I love being a hype woman, making people feel you can do what you, and live the life you want. People are out for themselves, so you need to start caring about you and what makes you happy. Nobody else will do it for you. At the end of the day, you’re left with yourself.”
Bahsoon, born to a Lebanese father and Malaysian mother in Malaysia – before moving to the UK for her A-levels and university – always grew up wanting to be a ‘rock star,’ but was never encouraged to be a performer by her family. "Every Southeast Asian girl can relate to this. When you have a talent that’s not traditional, you’re not super encouraged to follow it as a career.
"The kind of community pressures you have to face, sometimes that shapes who you are and how you act. That’s why I’ve only started now rather than before. I was concerned about what will my family think, or family friends. That’s why a lot of Southeast Asian girls are scared to put themselves out there. Our stereotype of being nerdy, and the transformation when we take our glasses off – I’m sick of seeing that.
“We’re baddies! We have our fashion, our jewellery and makeup. We can show up and show out. I want to show that side of us. There are so many of us unapologetically ourselves being ourselves, just not in the influencer world.”
Monk mode is a period of enhanced focus, discipline, and productivity.
Bahsoon is now officially an influencer. In recent weeks, she’s been invited to walk down the catwalk at London and Paris fashion weeks, working with brands like Boss and Valentino. She’s met Naomi Campbell, Penn Badgeley – who is a fan of hers – and she’s danced with musicians like Troya Sivan, Omar Apollo, and Bella Poarch.
She has ‘exciting’ plans in the beauty space, and hints that a career as a singer could be in her future, even though only her sister and manager have heard her sing to date. “I love music, making music, I’m just shy right now!” It is comforting to know that for all her confidence, Tube Girl gets her shy moments too.
I don’t know why I agreed to do this. I’m standing alone on the tube, trying to work up the confidence to do a Tube Girl video. I’ve followed Bahsoon’s tips – finding a carriage with old people inside because “they won’t even know what you’re doing” and listening to a song I absolutely love (Selfish Soul by Sudan Archives) – but it’s still not working.
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There are about twenty people on my tube carriage, even though it’s 9am on a Saturday morning on the Jubilee line, and the thought of what they’ll think about me filming myself dancing is making me feel sick. My palms are sweaty and no part of me wants to do this. I wish I had a friend by me for moral support and I have complete respect for Tube Girl who does this alone all the time.
I didn’t expect that I’d find it this hard. I love dancing and my friends know I’m the kind of person who will happily break out into dance moves on the street if there’s a good song playing nearby. I don’t mind dancing in public, and when I’m trying to do my Tube Girl video, I hype myself up by putting my phone in my pocket and just dancing along to the music in my headphones. I’m actually relaxed doing it – I don’t care if people see me having a good time and dancing by myself. But the second I get out my phone to try and film it? I am paralysed with fear.
It makes me realise that I’m not scared of people thinking I’m a weirdo who dances on the tube – I’m scared of people thinking I’m the kind of girl who films herself dancing on the tube. That maybe I’m arrogant or shallow or basic. It’s something I never knew about myself, and it’s not exactly a fun realisation, because it begs the question – on some level, do I judge people who do that?
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I remember Bahsoon’s words on why she doesn’t care about people judging her – “I’m not a judgemental person. If I see someone doing something crazy I think you live your life, you do you. So I don’t think about people judging me. If they do, that’s sad for them. Also, people will think about you for five minutes and then think about themselves for the rest of the time.”
Her words inspire me to try again. I look around the carriage and realise there’s a woman putting on her make-up in front of everyone. There are even two young girls joyously dancing round a pole. None of them care what anyone else thinks – so why do I? I decide to play Self-Esteem’s Rollout, and I work up the courage to gently dance (read: move my shoulders a bit), mouthing the relevant lyrics: ‘What I might have achieved / If I wasn't trying to please…’
We never see a transformation where the subject has gained weight paired with a positive message, do we?
My 12-second video has nothing on a Tube Girl video – I’m barely moving my body, my eyes keep darting around the carriage to see if anyone’s looking, and I’m too scared to stick my arm out full selfie-style – but the fact that I did it gives me a boost in confidence. I tell everyone I meet for the rest of the day that I did a Tube Girl video, and when absolutely everyone responds with – ‘I would never ever be able to do that’ – I’m proud of myself for even trying.
But I still know I need to try again to do this experiment properly. This time, I wait for a weekday morning so that the tube will be quieter – another Tube Girl tip – and to my luck, I find a carriage with only a couple of people in it. I go to the far end by the window, and get out my phone, ignoring the people in the other (packed) carriage staring at me through the glass.
This time I put on a more fast-paced song so that I have to properly dance – Little Girl Gone by Chinchilla – which has the added benefit of having lyrics like “you messed with the wrong bitch in the wrong era.” My heart is racing as I get ready to film myself, but I force myself to stop thinking and just do it. I stick my arm out, Tube Girl style, as the ‘wind tunnel’ gushes past me, and I let myself… have fun.
I dance like I’m alone in my bedroom – embarrassingly, waving my hands around, mouthing the words and getting some wrong. I can’t believe I’m doing this on the Tube in broad daylight. But I am. And when I finish, my heart is racing. I’m so proud of myself for doing this and for enjoying it.
Until I realise that the Tube has stopped, a whole group of people on the platform have seen me dance, they’re now laughing hysterically, and they’re all getting on my carriage. The three minutes until my next stop – when I can get off and swap Tube lines – are the longest of my life. I can barely look at these people. I know it’s not very Tube Girl of me – she brazenly stares her fellow passengers in the eye – but I’m too mortified to look up. I am, however, excited to send the video to my friend. ‘You look like you’re in a 90s music video,’ is the response. I’ll take it.
When I finally get off the Tube, I practically dance down the platform, high off adrenaline. I just faced my worst fear of being judged, and it’s not even midday yet. If I can do this? I can do anything.
