A not so hip de ja View

YouTube is no longer a platform meant just for watching cat videos and film trailers. It has rightfully grown into a huge networking community with numerous upcoming mini-celebrities of its own. These YouTubers, upload videos that range from comedy sketches to make-up tutorials and some of them even have a large enough fan base that they are recognised in public! But for people who are just starting off, is it as simple and glamorous as it looks? Not so much!

While the concept of YouTube is still new in the country, a number of groups have already made a space for themselves on it. “Channels like Buzzfeed, and AIB produce high budget videos. It is tough for newcomers as after watching these high production videos, viewers expect the same quality from everybody without understanding that we are just starting off. Sometimes, they lash out with hate comments but it’s best to ignore them,” says Sabrina Lobo a YouTuber and model.

The constant need to increase subscriber count and viewership rate is not the easiest, with so many people struggling to achieve the same goal. “For anybody starting off, it is quite tough. A lot of us would love to be full-time YouTubers, but that’s not possible as we don’t have a huge production team and budget backing. Hence, most of us have to juggle 9-5 jobs and curate content for videos at the same time” says Anusha Jagannath, a comedian on YouTube.

Comedy has a niche space on YouTube in our country.  “Everybody is doing comedy which is not very easy because people like Kanan Gill and Kenny Sebastian are established comedians and have already made a name for themselves on the site. So people who start off, are always compared to them,” says Vibhinna Ramdev. But is it as difficult for people who pick other genres?

“People who pick other genres like make-up tutorials, brand reviews, pranks, etc., find it slightly easier on the platform as there are no big names in that field yet. And when they do  reach a particular subscriber count, they are paid by certain companies to use and review their products. So they have it slightly better than comedians do” concludes the upcoming YouTuber.