Jayakodi Arachchilage Lochana Hansamali Jayakodi (born 24 September 1994, Sinhala: ලෝචනා ජයකොඩි), popularly known as Lochi, is a Sri Lankan Internet celebrity, YouTuber, dancer, model, actress and television presenter.[2][3] Started her career in 2016 with the brand name Lochi,[4] she later became a popular figure in TikTok, YouTube, and other social media.[5][6]
Lochana Jayakodi ලෝචනා ජයකොඩි | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Personal information | |||||||
Born | Jayakodi Arachchilage Lochana Hansamali Jayakodi 24 September 1994 | ||||||
Nationality | Sri Lankan | ||||||
Occupation(s) | YouTuber, Internet celebrity, model, television presenter | ||||||
Website | Lochi | ||||||
YouTube information | |||||||
Also known as | Lochi | ||||||
Channel |
| ||||||
Years active | 2018–present | ||||||
Genres | |||||||
Subscribers | 629,000[1] | ||||||
Total views | 85,987,044[1] | ||||||
Network | None | ||||||
Associated acts |
| ||||||
| |||||||
Last updated: 28 January 2022 |
She was born on 24 September 1994 in Piliyandala, Colombo, Sri Lanka as the eldest child in a family.[7] Her father Kapila Susira Kumara is a male nurse at Apeksha Cancer Hospital, Maharagama. Her mother Indrani Arugamage was a housewife, who died in 2014 from a lung infection.[8] Lochana has two younger sisters: Dhanushika Madhushani and Rumesha Ushani.[3] She completed her primary education at Piliyandala Junior School and later attended Dharmasena Attigala Girls School for Ordinary Levels. She completed A/Ls from Buddhist Girls College, Mount Lavinia.[9]
Before starting her social media career, Lochana worked as a dancer with a Certified Zumba Instructor Network (ZIN).[10] Following the YouTube videos of Lele Pons,[6] she had the intentions to become a Sri Lankan internet celebrity.[9] After the death of her mother, she started to join a dancing group where she continued to dance as a professional dancer for many popular dance troupes in Sri Lanka.[11]
Then in 2016, Lochana started her digital content creation with a TikTok account through the 'Musically app'.[12] Her first TikTok video was a dancing act along with one of her friends. In the meantime, she made two more dance acts and received good feedback from the followers.[13] Her first viral video was a Bollywood dance act. Later in 2018, she started to do comedy videos in TikTok.[14] Through her TikTok profile titled 'lochanajayakodi', she made dance, comedy, and lip-sync videos where she became a popular figure in social networks has gained over 850,000 followers on TikTok.[15][6]
Apart from digital content creation, she has acted in a stage play, when she was at the age of 12. Then she also acted in a television serial, still not telecast.[10] Then in August 2018, she started to follow YouTube and released many comedy videos along with Kelum Devanarayana.[16][6] Lochana has also made several appearances in television commercials such as Signal, Lemon puff, Ritzbury bubbles, Munchee, and People's Bank.[12] She also worked as a presenter for the television youth program 'Y-cafe' telecast on Sirasa TV.[17] Meanwhile, in 2021, she received a letter from parliamentarian Suren Raghavan by citing that he will help Lochana for her future endeavors.[18] In the same year 2021, she made her maiden television acting with the serial Race telecast on Siyatha TV, where she played the role "Randuli".[19][3] Currently she owned a 360 degree digital marketing agency "Lochi Studios pvt. Ltd.".[20]
By the end of May 2021, Lochi surpassed 452,000 subscribers on her YouTube channel.[21]