SHINING a spotlight on Newtownards businesses and her rare neurological condition, Robyn Kane has been nominated for an influencer award.
The Newtownards content creator has been nominated as a finalist for the ‘Influencer for Good’ category, at the VAVA Awards, taking place on Sunday at Revolution de Cuba in Belfast.
The nomination recognises Robyn’s content creation which features advocacy for her rare neurological condition, Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension (IIH), plus-size fashion and a promotion of Newtownards businesses.
Delighted to have been nominated, Robyn shared her story of how she fell in love with content creation and her passion for all things Newtownards.
Following the birth of her son two years ago, Robyn developed a number of ‘crazy symptoms’ at four weeks post-partum and was diagnosed with post-partum anxiety.
Seven months later, Robyn woke up completely blind. This was when it was discovered Robyn in fact had IIH, which causes high pressure to build up inside the skull due to too much cerebrospinal fluid.
“It’s also known as a ‘brain tumour without a tumour’,” Robyn explained, noting that it included all the signs and symptoms of a brain tumour.
Thankfully, following a lumbar puncture, Robyn’s sight came back and she felt inspired to begin a TikTok account focusing on the dismissal of motherhood.
“My GP was so quick to say it was all in my head – now it was in my head, it was just actually a brain condition,” she said, noting that the condition would eventually lead to the loss of her sight completely.
With the condition affecting one in 100,000 women of childbearing age, Robyn focuses a lot of her content on IIH advocacy and awareness.
Gaining more and more followers, Robyn began being asked about her clothes and so began her series ‘Fat Fits’, shining a spotlight on plus-size clothing.
Fat Fits recently was nominated for an award at the Ulster Tatler Awards.
“I then naturally just fell into wanting to do a wee bit on where I live,” Robyn continued.
Robyn approached Newtownards Chamber of Trade four months ago and asked if she could help local businesses, who weren’t as social media savvy, showcase their businesses online, free of charge.
“I’ve been able to help quite a lot of businesses and I absolutely love doing it,” she said.
Robyn created a video for Silk, a lingerie shop in Newtownards, promoting how the business offered mastectomy bras and donates bras to Women’s Aid.
The free exposure from Robyn, helped the owner increase her footfall after the video was posted.
“That’s what really drove me to do it – I feel like all these places online are getting so much and I felt like there wasn’t anyone from Ards doing it,” she said.
Robyn laughed as she said it was content pushing shopping in Rushmere that influenced her to start showcasing her hometown.
“Everyone was saying how amazing Portadown is and I was like, do you know where is amazing – Newtownards,” she said.
“It has so much vibrancy and I think because Ards and North Down are one council, everyone focuses on Bangor and where it has went but they neglect the fact that Ards is booming.”
Joining the Chamber, Robyn highlighted how it was a great place for local businesses to make connections to help aid both themselves and their neighbours.
With content creation becoming more popular among bigger businesses, Robyn hopes to help small local businesses become more social media savvy: “I just want to give them more knowledge so they can make more connections.”
“When I got diagnosed with my disability I wasn’t going to allow it to completely affect my life,” Robyn continued.
“You can allow it to take over and obviously there are other aspects – I can’t really look after my child on my own, I have memory loss and sometimes I wake up and don’t know who my husband is when he is lying in bed beside me – there is really horrific parts to this illness but I just don’t want it to define me.
“I want people to know me as the person who does stuff for her local town – I just think you can be more than your diagnosis.”
