Katarina Mogus Talks Diversity and inclusion in tech, being nerdy and girly, more In Interview
For Katarina Mogus, her advocacy for more women in tech parallels that of more accessibility in tech. Intersectionality notwithstanding, the industry sorely needs both.
“[It’s important] for the younger generation,” she said to me in a recent telephone interview. “Maybe I start creating videos because there wasn’t someone for me to look at and to be inspired by. I love having a female, girly spin to all of my videos and I feel like that’s what has made my platform so successful: because I’ve opened up the doors to a whole new market of women who may like certain features or want things explained to them differently, or want things to look a certain way or match their office and things like that. It’s a great for the industry to have female tech creators, especially in such a male-dominated field, because we bring such a unique thoughts and unique ideas to everything. The majority of my viewership is women, so a lot of brands love that, and it’s opening up a whole new area and ideas for brands to continue to create products and features that a lot of the population really enjoy and love.”
Mogus, a Toronto native who worked pre-pandemic for her hometown Toronto Raptors and Toronto Maple Leafs of the NBA and NHL respectively, is a full-time content creator who boasts 2.5 million followers on TikTok followed by 332,000 on Instagram and another 146,000 on YouTube. When COVID put the world in a vice grip back in 2020 and professional sports shut down, Mogus knew she “had to pivot” career-wise to meet the moment. She started making videos in which she offered advice to businesses on how to best succeed in an online-only format; the videos went viral “right away,” Mogus said, which landed her work with companies running their social media—all the while, she remained committed to churning out her educational content. Naturally, people began asking Mogus what kit she used to create her videos. As a nerd herself, she was more than happy to spill the technical tea to those looking to walk a similar path.
“All my videos [on TikTok] were surrounding the Apple ecosystem… all you need is the iPhone you have at home with you to create amazing content [and] amazing product photography [and] your laptop,” Mogus said. “Since it was a pandemic, people were also wondering ‘What desk setup do we need?’ I became the hub for all people who were working from home—small businesses, creative entrepreneurs, or anyone who wanted to really thrive using their technology during the pandemic—and my videos kept going from there, continuous with all the technology.”
Her tech-focused videos quickly gained the attention of captains of industry such as Apple, as well as Google, Meta, and Samsung. Since the pandemic, Mogus has worked with all these heavyweights in covering their products; she’s even worked with luxury automakers like Ferrari as Porsche in a similar capacity, which satiates her keen interest in cars. Even L’Oreal has tapped Mogus’ expertise in showcasing what she called their “beauty tech innovation.” Her nerdiness is strong, as she explained she’s “always been the friend” people go to for tech questions and troubleshooting. She has a “passion” for being helpful and an educator, describing herself as “really handy” and someone who “knew all the tips and tricks” long before she was a professional creator.
Like accessibility in mainstream tech media, Mogus sees women in tech as still being an outlier for the most part. She has humbly anointed herself a trailblazer of sorts, as she said there weren’t any educational TikTok videos when she started posting there; it was all “dancing videos and stuff,” Mogus said. In the years since, the tide has turned such that an increasing number of women are following the trail she blazed. One such person is Justine Ezarik, known as iJustine, who Mogus “really looks up to” and now considers a close friend. Mogus called Ezarik “an amazing woman who opens up doors for other women in this industry,” adding she models herself after iJustine’s example.
“That’s what I continuously strive to do as well,” Mogus said. “I’m really inspired by women founders and entrepreneurs or other women who work in tech who are executives, and I love to highlight them and showcase them on my podcast.”
Mogus is host of Future Obsession.
That Mogus caught Apple’s eye has a bit of a six degrees of separation effect for me. As a fellow member of the technology media, I’ve known Mogus for years now, personally and professionally, and have seen her from afar when covering Apple events. Likewise with the aforementioned iJustine, whom I also know and have interviewed in the past.
Like Ezarik, Mogus is an ally of disabled people and an advocate for accessibility.
My conversation with Mogus happened shortly after WWDC. When I asked what announcement(s) excited her most, Mogus told me she “loves” Apple’s new Liquid Glass design language and how it “streamlines” design across Apple’s expanse of an ecosystem. Moreover, Mogus also is appreciative of Apple’s willingness to allow users to customize, say, iOS with widgets and more. Some of her earliest TikTok material focused on this personalization, with Mogus praising Apple for “listening to its users” by empowering people to get creative without necessarily relying on third-party tools. Elsewhere, Mogus also spoke effusively about the overhauled multitasking paradigm in iPadOS 26, telling me she “really loves now we can have multiple different windows on the screen and have a clean and clear multitasking view and kind of turn your iPad into a mini MacBook.” Nonetheless, Mogus called her M4 MacBook Pro “my baby” along with her iPhone 16 Pro Max. She’s bullish on artificial intelligence too, using Google Gemini and ChatGPT daily to help boost her productivity and she loves AI for that.
When asked about feedback to her work, Mogus said it’s positive from brands and followers alike. The main thing, she told me, is her visibility as a young woman in tech and showing off her technical acumen. Similarly, brands have returned to solicit her thoughtful coverage time and time again because of the way she “[makes] videos that are more fun and more accessible for more people to understand” without all the technical minutiae. In a nutshell, Mogus can play both sides of the ball with equal skill.
“A lot of creators are very spec-focused or the way they explain it might be too difficult for someone who’s just starting out or doesn’t know what to do with their device,” she said. “I think I make it really easy for people to understand, and brands really appreciate that too. At the same time, when I first started creating content, a lot of brands may have doubted me because I am a young female showing up with a pink suit on and a really cute pink camera. I feel like I had to prove myself to these brands that ‘Hey, I can create amazing content educate my audience and the broader audiences on what’s important in technology: what’s new, what’s newest in innovation.’ I’ve built trust with [different brands] because I’ve built such a large community over the past five years.”
Looking towards the future of her work, Mogus said she’s focused now on continuing to push for greater diversity and inclusion in the tech media landscape. One conduit for that is her aforementioned Future Obsession podcast, of which she described as a show “[talking] about all the latest innovations and tech trends and what’s happening in the industry with amazing executives from companies like Spotify, Apple, Meta, Google and female founders” and added “I’m highlighting female voices and female executives, not only talking about what’s new in tech and all the latest innovations and trends, but also hearing from them for their inspiration and their growth.”
“[The show is] my passion right now,” Mogus said of working on Future Obsession. “I’m really leaning into it, and I’ve had a lot of incredible responses and a lot of exciting episodes coming up where I’m highlighting these incredible females.”
