By: Ayesha Barakzai
Loneliness is a struggle that many Torontonians face.
According to Statistics Canada, around 13 per cent of Ontarians often always feel lonely.
Because the weather is as cold as ever, and the days shorter, people tend to withdraw from social activities, isolate themselves at home, and feel more anxious and hopeless than ever.
It may be hard to battle these feelings, but it doesn’t mean we have to get through it alone. Sometimes, all it takes is for one person to get through to us.
Minjae Cho is a content creator who spreads joy through his social experiments and positivity content. He goes by MJ, and if you’ve ever come across itsmagneticmj on social media, you would see him giving out positive affirmations and bringing out smiles from the TTC riders.
Growing up, MJ has always been a social butterfly, but once the COVID-19 pandemic hit, everything changed. Isolation was at an all time high, and his social confidence at a low.
Now post-pandemic, MJ has made it his mission to create a positive difference in the lives of people.
Q: What’s the story behind you wanting to do these social experiments?
MJ: I first started doing social confidence content where I would talk to strangers, whether it was a greeting, a compliment or just small talk, then I evolved it into doing groups. One day, when I was on my way practicing my social skills content, I saw a group of people and I decided to wish them all a great weekend. At first they kind of gave me a funny look, and then they started laughing and smiling, so I started spreading positivity messages to groups everywhere I went. Then I found a home on the buses where I started doing some motivational speeches or saying positive one-liners to people. As it grew, I started using different props. I would maybe sometimes give out mints or read motivational cards.
Q: Are you able to remember the first time you did this, can you tell us how you felt, what was going through your mind?
MJ: I think I do remember when I had the idea where I was like, “Where can you always find a group audience?” Then it just popped up in my head, it’s like, “oh! the TTC”, that’s where millions of people from Toronto travel every single day, and you get people from different walks of life, age, ethnicity, story, culture. So I can’t really think of the first time, but it was in the summer though. I like speeches–I just had this idea where I was like why don’t you just say a speech on the bus and see how it goes?
I would always start with “excuse me, everybody.” That’s how I started to get everybody’s attention, and then I would just say whatever. I would continue doing it based off the reactions, or I would just start switching ideas to individual one-liners, handing out little small gifts, or different social experiments.
Q: Have you ever felt anxious when going up to people or were you always the confident type?
MJ: When I first started, there was a lot of anxiety. I didn’t know what the outcomes will be, how people would perceive me, and how people would react. I have always been kind of a social and outgoing guy, however COVID happened, so I did lose a lot of that social aspect. I did have to retrain myself. I was still in my hometown, working on my businesses, and I wasn’t seeing a lot of people.
So in the beginning, I was anxious and sometimes I would actually bomb. For example, I used to do speeches when I first started, I would forget the lines, and It would be super embarrassing. I would just have to wait for the next stop to get off. And then, I made it simpler for myself. I started doing one-liners, where the only thing I have to focus on is the delivery.
Once I started getting good reactions in person and online in the comments, I kept doing it every day. My confidence started to build. I still do sometimes get a little bit nervous because you are putting yourself out there in front of 20-30 people at a time, and everybody’s watching you, but now, it’s gotten a lot easier. I’ve developed the mindset where you don’t really have to start super strong, but always do your best to just improve after each person or each line. I do and always remember to finish strong, and if the vibes aren’t there or it’s just not going well, it’s okay. You can just stop and redo it on a new bus.
Q: Have you ever encountered any challenges/difficulties while you are on the transit?
MJ: I’ve for sure gotten a few bad reactions where people have actually sworn at me or just gave out some negative energy or dirty looks. I’ve learned now to really look at people’s body language and facial expressions before I come up to them. If I see them closed off, looking away or looking down, then it’s a clear sign that they don’t want to be filmed or have that interaction. So, I skip them completely. That’s helped me really avoid any more bad reactions.
Q: There is an online community that you have created, can you tell us what that is about?
MJ: I think there’s a lot of loneliness that goes on in our city. There’s a lot of guys and girls who have lived in the same city, worked at the same place, gone to the same cafe, restaurant, bar, whatever. And they’ve never really been able to socially integrate themselves and feel like they belong.
So, this community is about helping people become authentically confident and learn how to socially integrate themselves into environments like at work, their regular cafe, at any bars they regularly frequent, the gym, or wherever their hobbies and interests lie.
I feel that we all want to have a degree of a social life. It’s just for a lot of us, it’s hard to first make that jump. From going into a new environment, being able to put yourself out there, being able to meet people, connect with people, and take that friendship further and actually create a real relationship.
Q: Is there an outcome you are hoping to reach by interacting with people on the transit?
MJ: We all watch the news and it’s usually a lot of negative stuff, but I think doing this type of content shows that there still is a lot of good in the world. Showing people that there are a lot of similar people like myself who are positive, who do want to meet people, who do want to be friendly in little everyday moments.
Sometimes we all have things we want to say to people and start conversations with, but at the same time, a lot of us, we hold back and we just keep it to ourselves. In an age where most of our communication is done through our cell phones, I don’t want to live like that.
I don’t want to lose this human to human connection that we all really crave at the end of the day. So, my goal is to be socially confident and authentic in any environment that I go into. I don’t want to have situational confidence where I’m only confident at my gym because I’ve been going there for five-six years, or at this one restaurant because you know I’m a regular there and everybody knows me. My goal is to be able to become authentically myself and confident in any social situation and environment, and a second part of this is that it’s an opportunity.
When you socialize with people, a lot of different opportunities and things can come up. Even as small as agreeing back to a potential relationship, business opportunity, job opportunity.
Q: Do you have any future plans with your social experiments? Where do you see yourself going with it?
MJ: Yes, there’s a lot that I can do. I’m mainly doing my content in the TTC, however, I do plan on expanding into different environments. Maybe it’s a train, maybe it’s a different city, like who knows how people will react if I go to New York? I genuinely want to make this bigger and make this still super genuine though.
I want to show the world the best side of humans. Most of us are really good people and we do random acts of kindness.
Maybe in the future it’ll be bigger crowds, bigger environments, bigger experiments and bigger rewards for people. People might not be watching but sometimes you do get rewarded for it.
Purspective 
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