1. 52 DARPANTMJANUARY / FEBRUARY 2015
Reflecting The South-Asian Lifestyle
Remember the days when
YouTube was literally a sal-
magundi of videos ranging from
adorable pets to amateur videos
of babies (Charlie bit my finger
– again!). Of course it still is, but
the growing economics of You-
Tube has resulted in the traffic to
expand in this expoential zone to
kick it out of its amteur zone.
The platform has overgrown
to station professional videos
for celebrity gossip, beauty and
style tips, music and dance
videos and so much more. The
medium allows vloggers (video
bloggers) to connect one-
to-one with their subscribers
and foster a personalized
interaction. Moreover, YouTube's
synchronization tab with other
social media channels such as
Facebook and Twitter means
there is an infinite reach for
countless voices.
Statistically speaking, the video-
sharing platform attracts more
than 1 billion unique users visit
per month, has over 100 hours
of videos uploaded every minute,
records over 6 billion hours of
video watch time each month
and has 80% of the traffic coming
from outside the United States of
America.
YouTube sensation Lily Singh
a.k.a Superwoman with a fan
base of over 4.9 million is one
such personality emerging from
a generation of YouTubers that
have engineered videos that
are low-budget yet professional
and are self-produced, directed,
edited and marketed.
Youtubing has cemented as a
career in itself. "I think that I am
from a generation that is very
entrepreneurial. People under-
stand that creativity is so much
more possible with the digital
age and I feel that there is a sud-
den rush because first of all a lot
of other peo-
ple are do-
ing it and it's
kind of like a voice, we
live in a very expressive genera-
tion," Lily Singh explains.
Surviving and growing in the
competitive sea of talent, ideas
and voices, is vigorously de-
manding. "The biggest challenge
is that it is such a new phenom-
ena that there is no one really to
look back upon and see how did
they do it, did they succeed, what
happened with them. We are all
just kind of guessing our way
through this" Superwoman says.
Speaking on monetary terms,
with the influx of viewers on
is beauty and style tips or social
experiments in your city.
Digital star Shane Dawson with
a fan base of over 6 million went
on to direct a movie, Felix Arvid Ulf
Kjellberg alias PieDiePew, a video
game commentator with a subscriber
list of over 33 million went on to star
in two South Park episodes; and
Superwoman got an opportunity to
release a music album as well as
host the music launch event of
Dr. Cabbie, a movie produced by
Bollywood biggie, Salman Khan.
The demographics are in their
favour and the perks are too
tempting- appreciation, interaction,
fame, money and flexibility. It is not
surprising that several of these digital
stars have more followers than film
celebrities. Not only star faces but
also star content is instantly going
viral across borders. Millions of
subscribers are crowding their way
in to YouTube, pumping the number
of individuals subscribing daily to
the platform three times more than
last year.
It certainly is a field to experiment
with guaranteeing personalized in-
teraction, but if you are thinking
of launching yourself on YouTube,
then as corny as it may sound, Su-
perwoman says staying true to
your passion is imperative. "If you
want to start doing YouTube, you
have to do it for a reason you are
passionate about. [It should be]
something you can talk about
because it is so easy to see through
somebody who is putting on an act
and every YouTuber that I see is
unhappy or unsuccessful is be-
cause they are putting on an act of
something they are not, and [are] talk-
ing about things that they don't be-
lieve in.”
Speaking on monetary
terms, with the influx
of viewers on YouTube
sourcing from 61
countries, thousands
of channels are making
six figures a year. It
is no surprise that
advertisers are hoarding
these channels.
YouTube sourcing from 61
countries, thousands of channels
are making six figures a year. It
is no surprise that advertisers
are hoarding these channels.
Suddenly, YouTube is seen
as changing the consumption
patterns of viewers from
television. The conglomeration
of traditional media in the digital
space has created a pool of
opportunities, whether that
Configuring a New
Species of
Stardom
YouTube
By Garima Goswami