A 21-year-old TikTok sensation from Lavender Hill has taken social media by storm with his funny skits and wants to use it to lift his community out of poverty.
Gershon Booysen, 21, has over 132k followers, with his videos peaking at over 1 million views each since he started them two years ago.
The eldest of three siblings, Gershon lives with his single mother and siblings in a three-bedroom home and is the sole breadwinner.
Despite the constant strain of growing up in a gang- infested community, Gershon says he has big dreams of changing the narrative in Lavender Hill, through his art.
He says: “I grew up with a single mother and life has taught me how to remain humble.
“My life has not been the best but I found myself in the right moment at the right time and one of my teachers quoted [Mohandas Gandhi] to me: ‘Be the change that you want to see in the world’. And that stuck with me every day.
“I would wake up with a fire burning inside of me. It was the desire to make change in my community. And in this time, TikTok became a powerful tool to create funny skits that, I’d like to think, changed my life.
“My first video posted immediately went viral on social media. I became the change I wanted to see in the world and decided that making people happy is the way to go.”
Gershon who works as a plumber for City of Cape Town, recently designed a logo with his brand name Kleurling Ding and is selling T-shirts for R250 to raise funds to host a community concert in Lavender Hill in August.
He explains: “This is not just a logo, this is a representation of who I am.
“In the past, coloured people were called different types of things such as h*tn*t, etc. making us the most meaningless race.
“And until today, not one coloured has ever been president and the way we get treated is like we are just a thing. But I am a proud coloured – ek is ‘n Kleurling Ding.”
The goal of his clothing brand is to help his community. He adds: “The more T-shirts I sell, the more events I can host and bring entertainment to Lavender Hill, giving them the stage and the platform to show the world what our kids and youth can do.
“I plan on helping dozens of people in the community who struggle to put food on the table by handing out food parcels, doing unexpected grocery runs and not just for people but animals as well.”
To check out his quirky skits, follow him on @gershon_booysen on TikTok.
@peterjafrica brand collab with KLEURLING DING by @Gershon booysen ♬ Kleurling ding tk021 - Gershon booysen