When Metro Manila went on lockdown three years ago, the future looked bleak. COVID-19 cases waxed and waned and waxed again with every new variant's emergence. Plans turned into daydreams; there seemed to be no end in sight. It almost seems uncanny, thus, to be living in the "new normal" now, a point in time that one, then, would've struggled to think we'd reach.

A lonely and confusing time for many, the lockdown did see many curiosities unfold and go viral for the most varied of reasons. We whipped to the point of weariness for the short-lived pleasure of dalgona coffee, squealed over the phenomenon that is "Crash Landing on You," searched for some semblance of joy through online shopping, and tried if not cringed at TikTok dances all while anxiously monitoring the news about an unstinting virus. In hindsight, these served not so much as momentary distractions and white noise, then, but as coping mechanisms for a majority barred from going out and desperate to make the stifling indoors bearable.

Virality is a jarring thing – and Inka Magnaye can attest to this. When one of her TikTok videos went viral in May 2020, she told The Beat Asia that it felt like "being thrust into the spotlight."

A professional voice talent who has worked behind the scenes for pretty much her entire life, Inka had posted a video of her and her mother, veteran voice talent Lindy Pellicer, doing the voiceover for Philippine Airlines together. It was around Mother's Day, she explained. She had just bagged the PAL gig at that time, and she simply wanted to honor her mom, who was the voice of PAL in all its TV and radio ads in the '90s.

The video grew its own arms and legs. Perhaps it's people’s curiosity over an art so niche, maybe it's the fascination over finally seeing a real person behind a voice heard by many but never perceived (whether on the TV, radio, or the internet). Whatever these reasons were, the views and comments on Inka's video soared. And life, as she knew it, changed.

A Family of Voice Talents

While you've heard of a family of doctors or a family of lawyers or entrepreneurs, Inka's is a family of voice talents.

Apart from her mom Lindy, her brother Enzo, their father Gerry Magnaye, and his sister Neneng Magnaye-Arceo (Inka's aunt) are also respected professional VO artists in the industry. For Inka, it’s a niche that she has known her whole life.

"It turns out that this is just something that I'm naturally good at and I love it because it makes me feel – it feels like such a shallow thing to say – but I love it because I'm so good at it," she said.

"I'm able to communicate emotions very clearly, I can interpret different types of stories and poetry that you know people would just read and it wouldn't really affect them. If I read it a certain way, it could make them cry or fall in love and I think there's magic in being able to do that."

She also underscored that being a voice talent is not as easy as some may think.

"People are just like, 'Oh you're just talking, and you just need a nice voice.’ But there's so many people with nice voices who can't do voiceovers because it's not a talent, it's a skill,” she explained. “Voiceovers require skill and that's the reason why when people try to do it and then they record themselves and then they listen back they're just like, ‘Oh my gosh what is that?’ because it takes years. I sound like this because I've been doing voiceovers for over two decades.”

Post-TikTok virality, Inka now has a bigger following, which has allowed her to share with a wider audience about the art and world of VO, arguably quite an unseen if not underappreciated industry. But virality, too, is momentary. It can dissipate as fast as it happened. The difficulty, it seems, lies in affixing one's place after such viral sensation. What to make of such sudden exposure? How to operate above it?

In Inka’s case, branching out to content creation and podcasting were the next if not obvious step to further her craft.

'Sleeping Pill with Inka'

In mid-2020, Inka was approached by Cut Print Podcast Network to create a podcast of her own. She launched "Sleeping Pill with Inka," a Spotify Exclusive show where she lulls people to sleep.

"My goal for 'Sleeping Pill' has always been to create a little bubble... I want my listeners to feel like time has been suspended for them. What I always think of, if I could stop time where I wouldn’t age, the day wouldn’t go on, the seconds wouldn’t even tick by, I would rest because I know nothing would be happening. There's no due date to catch or there's no deadline to worry about," she said.

Indeed, Spotify is populated by various content. Aside from music, there's practically a podcast for every niche or interest. Films, horror stories, current events and news, true crime, politics – these are areas that can get quite heavy, she said.

"What I want my space to be is the rest bit from all of that, where people can feel safe... I want people to listen to Spotify and I wanna tell them it's okay, relax your muscles, don't tuck your stomach in. Just relax, no one's gonna judge you here, it's just you and me, and we're hanging out and I want you to leave all of your obligations outside of this little bubble because you don't need to think about them right now."

"Sleeping Pill with Inka" is regarded as the first "ASMR meditation podcast" in the Philippines. Pertaining to autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR), this tingling sensation is usually triggered by stimulating sounds that help viewers or listeners feel calm or relaxed. Although she admitted she wasn't the biggest podcast listener prior to making her own, Inka shared that she has been an avid ASMR consumer for over a decade, which has helped her through personal moments of stress and anxiety. It only makes sense, then, to want to contribute to such a comforting community and create her own ASMR through her podcast.

As such, it wouldn't have been possible without a platform. Being a Spotify Exclusive show, "Sleeping Pill with Inka" joins a roster of top podcasts headed by Filipino women. From "Talking Nansense with Nana Silayro,” Kim Molina’s “The Comfort Room” with Jerald Napoles, and Ria Ramz's "Let's Pretend It's 2AM" to "Between Us Queens" by beauty queens Pia Wurzbach, Carla Lizardo, and Bianca Guidotti, among many others, Inka shared that the platform's support for women creators has been nothing short of empowering.

"We're all equal as artists and creators on Spotify and I can feel that they believe in each and every one of our messages,” she said. “That's one of the reasons why I really love working and making content with Spotify.”

The Public in Public Figure

In early January, Inka shared a post on Instagram about her experience at the beach, where she encouraged a girl who felt embarrassed about her body to go for a swim, promising that no one would notice the features she felt ashamed of.

“Dark knees and elbows, dry skin, lines on my underarms, patchy pigmentation, stretch marks” – Inka listed these features that she considered her own "flaws." She wrote, "I have them all."

It was a post that garnered praise for its choice to keep it real on a public platform and more praise, still, for serving as inspiration to other women who may feel insecure about their own "flaws" and needed encouragement.

For many, the thought of sharing such vulnerabilities on a platform like Instagram where every profile seems perfectly curated may seem daunting. Inka, however, told The Beat Asia that it didn't really take her a lot of courage to share posts about body positivity and self-love online.

"The only way bravery and courage come in is if you're afraid and I post these things when I'm insecure, yes, but I'm unafraid to be vulnerable about that to people and I think the reason why I post that is because I would love for people to come join me in that feeling," she said. "I don't want people to feel scared about their vulnerabilities."

She's quick to admit that she, too, struggles with embracing herself completely 100% of the time.

"It's impossible to be that. In fact, many of the reasons why I post certain videos like, 'It's okay if you're overwhelmed, it's okay if you’re this [or] that,' I post those because those are the words that I [needed] to hear at that exact moment that I made that video," she shared.

She also expressed her wish to see others be comfortable about sharing their own struggles, adding that social media often only shows the successes of people's journeys.

"We never see how people get there. We never see how many times they struggle, so what happens is we just end up comparing ourselves, the worst of ourselves, to the best versions of these people that we see online, and I don't like that," she said.

It’s necessary to be self-compassionate. During the interview, Inka shared an exercise in kindness that she practices whenever she would feel bad about herself. In such instances, she thinks about her younger sister and talks to herself as if she is talking to her sibling.

"Every time [my sister] feels horrible about herself or she feels down in the dumps or she's struggling, I talk to her very gently because I love her, I care about her, I want her to succeed and I'm here for her and I think we need to be that for ourselves," she said.

"Most of the time, we're the opposite when we're feeling bad about ourselves. We look in the mirror and we go, 'Yeah you suck.' Who does that? I would never do that to my sister, I would never do that to my best friend, so why do we do that to ourselves? And I want women to understand and absorb that. I know it takes time.”

An Empowered Woman

In her essay "A Room of One's Own," the peerless writer Virginia Woolf wrote, "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction." Published almost a century past in 1929, this passage and its message still ring true today even when applied generally, as far as modern women are concerned. For a woman to set out into the world and do what she wants to do, she must secure her material conditions; she needs her own private space, as well as the financial capacity to sustain herself and allow herself to flourish.

To Inka, two qualities that she believes would make her an empowered woman are being financially independent and knowledgeable. As someone who did not graduate from high school and college, Inka admitted that she has her own blind spots and that it's important to address these gaps to move towards becoming an empowered woman. She happily shared that she had enrolled in a business course for the whole of March so she can learn about finance and how to handle her business, which is herself.

"I want to be able to secure myself. I want to make sure that I don't ever have to depend on anyone..." she said. "I have people I can depend on, but I wanna make sure I can first and foremost take care of myself."

She added that she hopes to empower her younger sister and other women by being authentic about her journey – triumphs and failures and all.

"I want them to see how I got there, I want them to see when I failed, I want them to see what I learned from that failure and how I got back up from that, and through all of this. That's the reason why I wanna stay authentic because I never wanna put on a show for the sake of clout and for the sake of admiration. I want people to see themselves in me, so when I succeed, I want them to feel that they can, too, and when I fail, I want them to see that we're in this together.”

Except for Inka, it isn't just mere want. It feels a necessity to rally for each other.

"Why I wanna be very successful is because I want people around me to succeed [because] when I succeed, I can help everyone else around me to do the same," she said. "So, that's always the push for me. I want to be better, and I want you to come with me."