“Music just taps into so many different parts of our brain. [It] allows me to perceive the invisible. Through the melody and the symphony of sounds, it makes something invisible very tangible. It’s so interpretative, and it serves as that middle medium between me and my audience,” she said in a phone interview with Lifewire. Over 100,000 people across TikTok and Twitch compose this streamer’s deeply connected audience. Choi hopes to unveil the hidden passion and god(dess) inside us all.
Creative Beginnings
Choi is the last person you’d expect to be a content creator. Digitally impaired and tech adverse, she describes herself as a more traditional pen-and-paper type of creative. Despite her young age indicating her as a digital native, she was anything but. She did not grow up tapping into the virtual sphere of social media. Instead, her life in South Korea was centered around something more tangible: performance. Choi is a descendant of refugees from North Korea; musicality has played a big part in her family lore. This love for music and unique singing ability saved her family many decades before her birth. “Music is one of the reasons why my family is alive. My grandparents were able to find their siblings through a music festival because they loved performing. After 20 years of separation, they were able to reunite with their family through music and the songs that they [sang] together as performers,” she said. “Music holds a special place in my heart.” Keeping in that creative tradition, her parents were both architects. Choi describes her upbringing as design-oriented with a bent toward the creative. It was this rearing that made the then-rebellious young Choi move in opposition toward the hard sciences, denying her true passion. Her creative parents nourished her singing talents though they remained repressed as a by-product of what she calls Korean social norms. Even years of performing on regional tours in South Korea as part of an ensemble musical cast was not enough to convince her that her true calling was music. Until she had an epiphany. “I wasn’t confident enough to say this is what I want to do for the rest of my life,” she said. “I think just realizing I really have one life… and spending time with myself… I felt so emotionally naked, but I had to face these thoughts. I feared regret. I knew if I looked back that I would regret not exercising the potential I saw in myself. I think, for me, that was the inspiration and motivation to take the first step.”
Taking A Musical Leap
The global health crisis of 2020 allowed Choi to discover the world of streaming, which she used as a smokescreen to pursue music, though not initially. She began as an art streamer until a music streamer raided her channel, sending dozens of viewers over. They requested a song, and the shy songstress sang “Isn’t She Lovely” by Stevie Wonder, and the rest was history. She took it as a sign and traded her digital drawing tools for a microphone. Now, her career is centered around making music and connecting with audiences with her voice. “In this virtual space, we were able to tell our stories and be heard from the opposite side of the world. The community on Twitch was the support group I needed to feel safe enough to perform,” she said. “I say this often, but I feel like I lucked out on my community.” Storytelling is at the core of her appeal. The Seolahh experience blends a passion for music with her knowledge of the brain and perceptions. Not one for taking the easy route, her streams are unique in that you get a story along with the gorgeous voice–and that’s what keeps audiences coming back. “Compassion and hope are at the forefront of my persona at this point in life. It’s all about taking little steps,” she said. “You don’t have to see the whole staircase. You just need to take that first step… and I’m just one example of that.”
