YouTube Fan Fest today will bring virtual stars face-to-face with their biggest fans in the city and around the country.
Taking off on a 27-city world tour, signing 33 feature films, having one’s own television show, recording with a Bollywood playback sensation — these are just some of the offshoots that young YouTube stars enjoy, thanks to their popularity and reach on the popular video sharing website. After working round the year towards their creative pet projects, they come face-to-face once a year at the Fan Fest, with the audience that helped make them the demigods of rookie content creators — rookies that eventually earn a following of anything between 1 lakh to 8 million subscribers. The number of views and followers after a point shoot up beyond comprehension and with 400 hours of content being uploaded every single day. It’s a crazy clutter to wade through, agrees Satya Raghavan, head of content operations, YouTube India. Interestingly, beauty and fashion-related stories attract most traction, followed by comedy, music and language, he adds.
The YouTube FanFest happening at the NSCI today will see some of the biggest virtual stars including AIB, S&G, Kanan Gill, Put Chutney, Sanam, The Viral Fever, to name a few. Here’s a closer look at some of them.
Kaushal, 1,147,145 subscribers Kaushal’s content revolves around make-up hacks, elaborate make-up tutorials etc. A London girl with a subscriber base across the world, this is Kaushal’s first appearance at the YouTube Fan Fest. Ask her a way to crack the huge subscriber code and she says, “There are hundreds and thousands of people out there doing comedy, make-up and music videos. But just make sure that the content that you put out there is very ‘you’ because there is only one ‘you’ in the world and therefore your video should reflect that.”
The Viva, 42,494 subscribers Sabarish Kandregula and Harsha Chemudu spin videos around college vivas. The success of their online gigs has earned them a whopping 33 Telugu feature films — including big banner ones featuring Naga Chaitanya and Ram Charan. The two have their roles clear — one acts while the other directs. Says Harsha, “We don’t have to look outside our conversations to find something funny. We find humour in everything. I was very conscious as a child due to my appearance and stayed home most of the times. My friend told me that if I could tickle someone’s funny bone by merely being myself, why not make more out of it ” And that’s how the two took to YouTube to make Viva, a series that revolves around college humour.
The two take up most of their films as a team too. “Directors give us a free reign most of the times because they trust our sense of humour and timing. Besides, the kind of humour that we generate as a team is not something we can do with other people, and they understand and respect that,” adds Sabarish. The two will soon collaborate for a project with Netflix.
Connor Franta, 4.9 million subscribers Franta publicly came out as gay in a YouTube video and spoke on the help he got from others on the Internet. He wanted to give people struggling with their sexuality similar advice. His six-minute long video Coming Out has over 10 million views.
“I am just amazed by how beautifully hectic India is! I have one message for new YouTubers. First try to figure out your niche and figure out what kind of content you want to make, instead of thinking what kind of stuff people want to see — because at the end of the day, you have to enjoy what you're going to make. Figure that out, make mistakes, failure is not necessarily a bad thing. And just keep going because it's not going to come easy. It took me two years before my channel actually took off. I started with a web cam and made stuff for school, family and friends. A few years later I had a better camera, my content was more scripted and edited.
When someone asks me what I do for a living, it changes from being an actor to editor to designers. Fact is, I make videos on the internet,” he says rather candidly.
Lilly Singh: 8 million subscribers YouTube heavyweight, Lilly Singh aka Superwoman is a stand-up comedian and already has a full-length feature film in her kitty. One of the most sought-after YouTube stars she says, “Fanfest is my favourite event, I swear I am not being paid to say this. India in particular is a very important stop for me. I announced my world tour here and also started it here, across seven cities. Performing in India is like home-coming to me because the people here are just so warm. For those wanting to start off as YouTube content creators, I have just one advice — don’t take any! Everyone has their own path, there is no right or wrong. A lot of times people ask me ‘how do I make a viral video’ I always say, don’t try to make viral videos. Don’t try to chase views and numbers — as tempting as that is, just try to build a community and cater to people who are just as passionate as you are about what you do.”
