Casual Geographic Found Success In The Curiosity Gap

**Dan Bova** (0:00)
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**Mamadou Ndiaye** (1:54)
I had a nickel for every time an animal almost took my eye out. I'd have two nickels. It's not really a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice and it happened within the same month.

**Dan Bova** (2:08)
Hey everyone, welcome to How Success Happens. I'm Dan Bova, writer and editor at entrepreneur.com. So a lot of creators who are devoted to nature, are all about showing how nature can calm our minds and bring us peace. But today's guest is much more interested in exploring how nature can rip our freaking faces off.
Please welcome the host of the very funny, educational, and always terrifying YouTube channel, Casual Geographic, Mamadou Ndiaye. Mamadou, how are you?

**Mamadou Ndiaye** (2:42)
I'm doing great, excited to be here, and yeah, that was a great read. I didn't even have to pay you for that at all. That was, I appreciate that.

**Dan Bova** (2:48)
Well, you didn't have to pay me yet, but the invoice is coming. Fair enough.

**Mamadou Ndiaye** (2:53)
They still young.

**Dan Bova** (2:54)
Yeah, exactly. So you have millions and millions and millions of followers across all channels. But for those who might be listening to this, who aren't among those followers, can you give us a quick snapshot of what Casual Geographic is all about?
Okay.

**Mamadou Ndiaye** (3:13)
So Casual Geographic is a brand that I came up with a couple of years ago where basically, I'm sharing my love and fascination of nature, wildlife, zoology. But everyone has a different entry point into zoology. Some people are able to consume a three-hour documentary on a Saturday night and like it's nothing, like me, or maybe you're not as interested. Maybe the most exposure you get to nature is something when you're scrolling on Instagram Reels and you see something that catches your eye. And I feel like everybody has some kind of inherent interest in nature. It's just a matter of finding the correct entry point. And for a while, I realized that kind of emphasizing the more absurd, or I guess terrifying aspects of nature, that can serve as a really good entry point for people. And then tidying together with this overarching narrative, while also blending in my sense of humor, I feel like it creates a product that makes it accessible. And I think that's the most important aspect of Casual Geographic. I like to think it's very accessible to the average person.

**Dan Bova** (4:15)
Did you start with the idea that I'm going to take this love and create content with it? Or was it the reverse where you said, I want to be a content creator, what should I do? And then came to the animals.

**Mamadou Ndiaye** (4:27)
It was, weirdly enough, it was kind of neither. So I've always been interested in animals, and I honestly don't know where it came from. Usually when people ask me that question, I'll say something like, oh, I had all the zoo books as a kid. If you remember those commercials back in the day, National Geographic, I would have like, Zoo Tycoon, where you could build zoos as a kid, that computer game, Zoo Vet, all these things, right? But none of that's true. I had all those things because I was interested in animals. I don't know where the exact interest came from. Like as young as three, four years old, I was drawing these really crude drawings of animals, numbering them, stapling it together and going, Mom, I made a book. So yeah, couldn't really tell you where it came from. But with regards to the content, yeah, when I started, I was not making animal content at all. Honestly, it was always an interest, but it kind of got pushed to the side just because I didn't think it was cool. Or I just didn't think a lot of people had the same interest that I had, which is kind of silly to think of. Not that I say it out loud, but that's kind of where my mindset was at, at the time. So when I joined TikTok, one, it's always funny. Anyone who's watched me do these enough times knows exactly what I'm about to say, but I always bring up that I downloaded TikTok April 15, 2020, and I got laid off from my job as an environmental field tech the very next day, completely unrelated, because certain things were happening in the world around the time of 2020, and I had just started at this company. So I kind of saw the writing on the wall. They're actually really great to me, so no hard feelings. But all of a sudden, I'm bored, I'm unemployed, I'm in the house, nothing better to do. So I started firing up the old TikTok after talking a lot of crap about it. I downloaded it as a joke.