Dear Bollywood, Get Off Youtube! Your Content Is Rubbish And You Don’t Deserve So Many Subscribers

Dear Bollywood, Get Off Youtube! Your Content Is Rubbish And You Don’t Deserve So Many Subscribers

Now before you read that very suggestive headline and cast me aside as a Bollywood misanthropist, let me stop you right there and clarify that I most certainly am not. Like almost every average Indian kid, I too, have been raised on a staple diet of Bollywood blockbusters, and I have been in awe of certain celebrities because, I admit it, I may be a little star struck, but only some times. And even though it now seems like Bollywood will put anyone with any sort of lineage in the business to get the box office ringing, and the nepotism debate is alive and kicking, and basically scruples are easily done away with. But there have been a few actors that have won our hearts fair and square. Alia Bhatt is one of them.

Also Read : Alia Bhatt To Start Her Own YouTube Channel To Interact With Fans And We Have All The Deets!

The actress made her debut with Karan Johar’s disappointing original Student Of The Year,  which had no semblance to students or schools, soon went on to earn that status of a star by giving us back-to-back hits, reinstating our faith in her ability to deliver. Be it her role in Raazi, or her upbeat and different character in Gully Boy as Safeena, the actress did justice to all of them and made a place for herself. Big on endorsements and social media, with an impressive 35 million following, we saw the woman orbit into success by making all sorts of, what might be considered by many, risky decisions. So naturally, when she announced that she’d be launching her own YouTube channel too now, we were far from thinking it would be a misstep. As was she.

4 weeks ago, the Kalank actress announced her upcoming Youtube channel through a video that had all our interests piqued. Talking about showing the Alia side to herself and not the celebrity side, she promised we’d be in the know of her life as a v-logger. And we believed her. 2 weeks ago, she dropped the first video of some BTS action of a GIF shoot. The video was 2 minutes long and involved her taking up different expressions and caricatures to make GIPHYs out of. It was cute, kinda dull, but we didn’t quite dismiss it yet. After all, our overarching love for the actress had to account for a teensy bit of a bias sometime. But then, 5 days ago, the actress released another video, what was to be a v-log of her moving into her first house, and we were out of biased handouts to give.

First of all, the so mentioned Vlog, barely qualified to be a video, what with being of only about 2 and a half minutes. Moving on to the content, that there was none, Alia Bhatt walks us through, or rather rushes us through, the one day footage of her ‘setting up’ her own house where we could see her shift a few pieces an inch to the left and right and dust her shoulders for a good pat. She narrates through the video, telling us how it took her and her sister almost 2 years to get the house ready, and we didn’t know what to do with that information. I mean, of course we understand that this one is loaded with cash and wouldn’t be actually pushing around couches or seen painting the walls, but what we did on the other hand expect was to see more of her candid self.

Also Read : Alia Bhatt Dancing To Tip Tip Barsa Paani Is So Relatable. But Also, How Is She So Cute?

The video lacked of so many things, it would be easier to point out what it didn’t. There was barely any talk about how she envisioned her first house to be, where she shopped for most of the stuff, which was the favourite corner of her house, how many days did it take for her to set on the colour of the walls, and how this space was an extension of her personality, if it was that. There was absolutely nothing of the sort that would maintain that personal connect with her and the audience. But you scroll down a little and see the number of views and subscribers of her channel, and you’re immediately second guess yourself. Did I infer it wrong? Was it actually good? Did I skip some part of the video? Because how does such a rookie YouTuber get more than 2 million views on just their 3rd video?

https://www.instagram.com/p/BzKV5zlFLKj/

It takes legitimate YouTubers good 3-4 years to settle into the groove of making videos and content that is both relevant and viral. But then, celebrities like our very own Alia Bhatt come along, make 2 videos with crappy content and pocket million of subscribers, making all the rest insignificant in one fell swoop.

And the thing is, the content isn’t even great. It offered nothing new. If a regular person (not a celebrity) made this, they would get 2 views – from their mom and father. Okay, make it 3. Maybe they can force their dog to watch it. Top that with the fact that there is nothing remotely candid or real about this and as an audience member, instead of feeling connected to the celebrity, all you are feeling is inadequate. Jacqueline Fernandez also has her own Youtube channel now. Her first video was a snappily edited series of montages of how she’s always been in front of the camera.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B0QvxVcnT5T/

But see, that’s the thing. While right now we may see the polished version of Youtubers’ videos now, they didn’t start off like this. They all fumbled with camera setup, with awkward editing, with learning everything on their own. Theirs is a story of hard work and climbing up the ladder, one rung at a time. The subscribers didn’t lap it up, didn’t come running to you.  They’d have to be consistently putting out videos in to the void that Youtube can be and then hope and work towards getting noticed.

On the other hand, these celebrities are already known. Anything they say, the audience laps up. They have fancy ass cameras at their disposal, they have editors with years of experience on their speed dial. This is just another platform to be present on. They aren’t awkward in front of the camera, and it’s not like they need their story told. They’ve enough people doing this for them anyway. And we were hoping there would be interesting content, content that, if not surprise us, would at least offer us some real insights into the star’s life. This was nothing of the sort. Not even close. And we are not buying into it.

By shoving their views and subscriber count into the faces of other real Youtubers, they are simply riding their wave of stardom. We are seeing some genuinely great content come out of Indian Youtube, people who are being recognised at a global level for their talent and then these stars come along, adding no value and already have a following. It’s unfair. And don’t you use the ‘But life is unfair’ line on me. Because it may be but this takes away from the people genuinely putting in effort and we are not here for it.

We expected better and we are not entirely wrong in doing so.

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Sadhika Sehgal

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