Creator Stories: Featuring Carlos Fernandez
Carlos Fernandez’s career grew out a Call of Duty obsession. When he was 13, Carlos would spend hours after school watching Call of Duty montages on YouTube, and realized he could easily create the same style of video he constantly watched. He learned to do so using Adobe After Effects and started posting his work online, but eventually dropped the gaming edits and fell in love with sports and music instead.
At 19, Carlos got his first internship working as a content production intern for an independent concert promoter called Swerve. He’s convinced he got the internship out of pure fate — he had just made his creative Instagram account @dezarchives, and someone named Josh Gluck followed him. Out of curiosity, Carlos stalked Josh, saw Josh worked for Swerve, which was looking for interns, and the rest is history. At Swerve, Carlos edited show promotion videos and a content series called “Video of the Week”. He also hosted a show called “The Line”, where he interviewed local figures on the Orlando area.
After his initial start in the industry with Swerve, Carlos has gone on to work with various music groups and sports organizations. In music, he worked as a Content Production Intern for Capitol Records and a Marketing/Social Media Representative for Universal Music Group’s agency 1824. In sports, Carlos gained valuable experience as a Game Night Intern for minor league hockey team Orlando Solar Bears and as a Live Production Intern for University of Central Florida Athletics. Currently, he is a Marketing Coordinator for media company New Tradition.
As a Gen Z working in marketing, it’s no surprise that Carlos gets most of his inspiration from social media. He especially loves Instagram accounts @sporarts, @blackdeperle, and @sleepingongems, who he believes are unbeatable for visuals. He also enjoys scrolling through Twitter and TikTok to see what’s currently going on in pop culture and sports to see how he could spin it professionally and for his basketball-themed TikTok, @fevertakes. Finally, he gets inspiration from his favorite sports accounts (namely the Orlando Magic, Miami Heat, and Miami Dolphins) and what graphics they’re posting on their socials.
Carlos is proud of the fact that he can do both content creation and social media management, and believes that his growing TikTok is proof of that. It’s also a great representation of his personality and personal interests. Eventually, he wants to work as a Social Media Coordinator/Manager for a sports team, and is confident he’ll make his dream a reality. We would have to agree.
The most important piece of advice that Carlos wants to share to other creators is that persistence is key. There have been so many times that he has wanted to quit social media and working in entertainment, but he knew that doing so would be letting himself down and giving up on his dreams. He is incredibly grateful that he never did.
Check out Carlos’ work and his socials below:
