By Ananya Bhardwaj
If you pick up your phone and scroll through social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube, chances are that among the most recent posts, you will encounter updates from channels like AIB, EIC, TVF. Your social media platforms are also likely to be filled with individual posts from the brains behind these operation famous comedians like Rohan Joshi, Tanmay Bhat, Ashish Shakya, Khamba, Sorabh Pant, Sapan Verma to name a few. Collectively, they amass over a million followers for their individual channels and several thousands subscribed to their own personal accounts.
The question of the hour what has led to the widespread following of such channels? Are comedians the new celebrities on the block?
AIB what makes them so famous?
Lets look at AIB, for example – their social media team makes use of appealing and intriguing thumbnails for their videos, while simultaneously steering safe from clickbait-like content. This provides their viewers with the ability to choose whether they wish to view a video or not, thus increasing the stability on their content quality. On Twitter, AIBs tweets are mostly comedic (albeit risky) commentaries on cricket, politics, and other pertinent topics.
The makers of AIB are known to unabashedly represent their opinions right from tweeting in Hindi to making jokes on delicate matters and poking fun at each other they reflect the exact kind of audience that follows them on Twitter. They are also (in)famous for voicing their opinions on important issues in their own unique form of narrative..
AIB’s social media strategies make their posts prone to more shares and likes on Facebook as compared to Twitter. It thus increases their outreach even further as Facebook interprets how keen people are in viewing the material, helping AIB push their posts more frequently on peoples timelines. In the midst of liking cat videos and reposting trending memes, AIB’s cleverly crafted content worms its way into capturing many a millennials’ attention. Comedians appear to have achieved what is generally expected from news presenters and anchors – make trending affairs relatable and informative to the youth.
The medium of choice in question is the internet where everyone practically lives, young and old alike.
Satire-based comedy shows, inspired by global comedians such as John Oliver, Hasan Minhaj, and Trevor Noah , are gaining newfound popularity. In the previous year, AIB launched a comedy news show on the Indian streaming app, Hotstar, With the tagline, tragedy mein comedy. The show addressed topics like the Whistleblowers Act and Vyapam scam with tactful humour. On such comedy-based political satire shows, there are no shouting contests, no monotonous speeches, and no aggressive power play between the anchors and the guests. why are these shows so popular? H It is because they communicate in a language that the average, youngsocial media-savvy person can easily relates to and understand.
Is India ready?
Although comedy is an effective tool for starting conversations about issues that are otherwise considered to be taboo or often viewed as too complex, there are disadvantages on relying on it too heavily. In a country like India, one needs to be wary when using humour, taking into account factors such as how serious the subject matter is, whom the issue affects, and who becomes the target.
Not surprisingly, these comedy shows have now become the major source of news for a lot of people. Many claim that they remain abreast of current affairs through such shows. It holds true particularly for young adults who live in hostels and have little to no access to cable news programs. Many NRIs are also believed to follow these shows to keep up with interesting news stories in India.
Although the popularity of politically-charged talk shows in the west saw a boost in the 90s, in India, this trend has caught on fairly recently, with Indians now following the footsteps of stand-up comedians who popularised satire shows in the West.
Humour, if in bad taste or deliberately and cruelly targeting individuals or groups may cause conflict. However, humour is sometimes believed to be a biological process of working out tough-to-comprehend matters or emotions. This may be why our instinct is to laugh in response to wry, dark or tragic events, which right off-the-bat, shouldnt be funny at all.
Over the past decades, researchers have put together a substantial pool of evidence that proves that some forms of comedy including satire hold relevance as an imperative social cause, from breaking traditional barriers and taboos to holding authority figures accountable. To quote Avner Ziv, author of various books on humour, Comedy and satire possess a common denominator in that both try to change or reform society by means of humour. The two forms together constitute the best illustration there is of the social function of humour.