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Cape Town - This week, African Voices focuses on entertainment in the digital age including an interview with South Africa YouTube star, actress and illustrator Julia Anastasopoulos - otherwise known as SuzelleDIY.
CNN films with Anastasopoulos as she creates one of her highly successful DIY episodes for YouTube - this time making a coffee table.
Anastasopoulos explains why she loves making her comedic DIY episodes: "I really do think that I was supposed to do this, supposed to find this comedic character and bring joy of some kind. So it's an amazing feeling... For me there's so much humor and lightness, and you know, a lot of people look at South Africa or Africa with gloom and that's fine. But there's amazing stuff happening, and the characters in my world are incredible... I'm so glad what I'm doing celebrates one aspect of that."
On the type of humor she's going for, Anastasopoulos tells CNN: "It's such a celebration of South African culture you know. We all know a Suzelle and you know she's fabulous and Afrikaans and she gets dressed up to do DIY... I see it as a celebration in a lot of ways. It's a parody, but we as South Africans we laugh at ourselves and I think that's so important."
Anastasopoulos tells the show that her passion for art and acting started early: "I grew up in Johannesburg in a suburb called Parkwood... My mum is an art teacher so that definitely influenced me growing up... My dad was always very DIY, he was often building furniture or we were making a rabbit hatch or... there was always something happening. And I love to get involved in that kind of thing."
Beyond South Africa, Anastasopoulos believes that Suzelle has international appeal: "Definitely in a lot of ways I think that brand of comedy, that kind of humor, is a very universal kind of humor. It's that kind of... it's a little bit tragic. It's that kind of humor and I think it does kind of appeal and on the other hand there's a lot of South Africans living abroad that love Suzelle. We get a lot of messages and emails saying, you know, 'we love Suzelle, I feel so nostalgic when I see Suzelle'- which is amazing."
African Voices is sponsored by Globacom Limited.
African Voices airs Friday, 9 December at 11:30 SAST on CNN International.
The show also airs at the following times:
Saturday, 10 December at 01:30 SAST and 17:30 SAST
Sunday, 11 December at 01:30 SAST and 20:30 SAST
Tuesday, 13 December at 06:30 SAST and 12:30 SAST
