Our July digital cover star, Sabrina Bahsoon, has truly been living the dream since the #TubeGirlEffect trend popped off on TikTok. Here, she shares some lesser-known facts about herself.
We sit down with Sabrina Bahsoon, aka “Tube Girl”, as she dishes on some things that you may or may not yet know about her — before and after she achieved TikTok stardom.
Five facts about Sabrina Bahsoon:
#1. Sabrina is Malaysian-Lebanese-Sierra Leonean. Part of the reason why she’s back is also to celebrate Eid al-Adha with her family. (Her mother is Malay, and her father is half-Lebanese and half-Sierra Leonean.) And regardless of where she travels to in the world, she is fiercely proud of being Malaysian — her culture has played a part in her love of fashion. “And I think, like, also being Malaysian… that inspires me a lot,” Sabrina opens up. “The batik, the kebaya silhouettes, everything. My mom, and my grandma have always been very fashion-forward — on both sides of my family — so I take after them, too.”
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#2. She’s super big on music, and has always dreamed of becoming a rock star. Of course, what could be a more fitting journey than dancing to the best tunes in the tube, to becoming a rock star? A true lover of music, Sabrina never travels on the tube without her headphones. She’s always got a song playing in her head, and she practises her #TubeGirlEffect dances at home before she puts on the show, and ‘feels’ for the movements by dancing. “I love music so much,” she gushes. “It’s the reason why I even started dancing on the tube in the first place, it’s ‘cause I was listening to music. I feel like there are certain songs that just make me feel a certain way.”
#3. She describes her sense of style as an aesthetic that goes from ‘witchy’ to ‘mermaid’. Since her grand fashion debut, Sabrina has completely immersed herself in the art of styling. Even after she’s worked with some of the biggest fashion houses, she still finds herself drawn to thrifting and vintage clothes shopping. “I still think that it is the most sustainable and best way to create your wardrobe,” she says. “I think that thrifting forces you to be creative. It also gives you pieces that nobody else has. And I don’t know, you just end up with the coolest things sometimes.” She loves “flowy boho vintage clothing”, “a lot of lace, miniskirts and crop tops, pairing them with cool jackets”. And her sense of style? “I’m either, like, siren-y mermaid vibes or… ooh, I think I’m either a siren or a mermaid,” Sabrina says with a laugh. “I know a siren is a mermaid, a dark mermaid. But those are my two aesthetics for day and night. Witchy or mermaid.”
#4. She’s the middle child of five! Because of her unapologetic confidence that she shows off through the #TubeGirlEffect — and the extra ‘main character energy’ it gives off — one might think she was an only child. But she has two older sisters, a younger sister and a younger brother… which puts her right in the centre of a rather large family. “I’m very, like, middle-child syndrome,” she admits, laughing. “It’s so bad. It’s so crazy.” But despite being the only ‘chronically online’ one of the bunch (and the most popular), Sabrina and her siblings have a very wholesome relationship. “My brother cooks me dinner all the time,” she says fondly. “He’s my personal assistant, photographer, like… he does it all. He actually comes with me to most of my things. He came with me to Coachella, we got to go to Coachella together, our first time in America, together. That was really sweet. It’s nice when you get to treat your siblings.”
#5. She started #TubeGirlEffect with the simple mindset of, How come nobody has done this before? If you think Tube Girl has a kind of devil-may-care attitude, you’re right. Sometime in her final year of university, Sabrina stopped caring so much about what people think of her. And thus, to escape the mundanity of riding the tube every day, she decided to make it fun. “I would always be alone in those carriages, like, at night or in the buses,” she says. “And I saw a bunch of crazy stuff, like, people were acting crazy in London all the time. So I was like, ‘You know what? No one’s gonna care if I record myself.’ It was always so hot in the summer, and I would always stay at the seat near the window, and my hair was blowing and I was like, ‘Why has nobody tried this yet?’ It seemed so obvious to me. That’s why I was so confused at the reaction.”
Find out more about SABRINA BAHSOON in the latest issue of LSA Digital Cover Vol. 023 HERE.
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Written by
Puteri Yasmin Suraya
Senior Writer, Features and Tech
Hailing from an English Literature & Creative Writing background, Yasmin has a deep love for fiction and poetry. When she’s not reading or café-hopping, she spends most of her time in the comfort of her own room binge-watching period romances, (badly) belting out show tunes, and curating Spotify playlists to match her mood for the week.
