Something seems invariably common among all Punjabi YouTube stars. Whether their accounts pertain to agriculture, heritage, history, folk music or anecdotes, most of their videos reflect the present-day lifestyle laced with nostalgia. Apart from the food and humour, it is swords and guns, cars and tractors, birds, dogs and horses that command their obsession. The videos are mostly replete with not just local but also national and global advertisements. While these vloggers don’t hold a degree in journalism and mass communication, they credit the internet for training them.
Harbhej Sidhu, 31, is one such two-year-old YouTuber. For him, the first lockdown was a blessing in disguise as he got an opportunity to redraw his career map using his cell phone camera. The postgraduate in Punjabi, armed with a BEd in History, learnt video editing on YouTube at night, and in the day taught history to students of a private school in Moga village online. A few days later, armed with a cell phone, a well-researched script and raw passion, Sidhu went on to shoot a video of the local fort in his home district, Ludhiana, named after Emperor Sikandar Lodhi.
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After some standard editing cuts, he posted the six-minute footage on his eponymous YouTube channel. The response was “beyond my expectation”. It didn’t take him long to decide in opting for this desired career path. However, the aspiring singer and poet was almost heartbroken after being allegedly defrauded by a music company. “Now I am planning a series of videos on great poets that our current generation seems to have forgotten,” he adds. In fact, one of his latest videos is about the house, now in a dilapidated condition, where acclaimed Punjabi dramatist, Balwant Gargi (1916-2003) was born. He says his report on Sikh Guru Arjan Dev Singh’s birthplace at Chohla Sahib in Punjab’s Tarn Taran district also got a high amount of viewer appreciation.
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Today, Sidhu’s YouTube channel boasts of 1.63 lakh subscribers and 552 video uploads. He has close to four lakh followers on Facebook, but a negligible amount on Instagram as he is new to it. However, in his growing armoury, Sidhu already possesses a Canon 200 D and D-80 cameras, an iPhone 13 Pro and a drone. Now, his younger brother, Harnek Sidhu and friend, Sukhjinder Singh Lopon, have come onboard to assist him. Lopon also runs Shonki Sardar, a YouTube channel with over 5.46 lakh Facebook followers and 3.38 lakh YouTube subscribers. On March 19, Sidhu posted a vlog on an octogenarian, who in his early 20s is said to have killed a leopard in 1963 at a village in Patiala. Another video was on birds and horses. Within a few hours, both videos were viral. “Once you have 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch-time, your YouTube channel starts generating revenue for the original content,” he says, adding that “to earn money on Facebook, one must have at least 10,000 followers and over 5 lakh views within 60 days.”
According to him, every part of the content should be original even the background score as it could invite copyright issues. Though Sidhu owns agricultural land, for the past one year he has been completely focussed on his creative work. “What I earn from my social media platforms is adequate enough to support me, my family and the work that I am so passionate about,” he says, lauding Facebook and YouTube for maintaining transparency when it comes to sharing revenue with content uploaders. “Unlike a newspaper that becomes useless the next day, my stories generate continuous revenue as someone is always watching and sharing it in their social circles.” Besides social media platforms, Sidhu says, he has started getting revenue on advertisements that he incorporates in his videos.
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Buoyant over his initial success, Sidhu has crossed Punjab borders to cover stories from Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Maharashtra. In Punjab, ancient religious and military architecture remain his favourite subjects. “I do a lot of research, especially when I write scripts on historical subjects. The problem is that most of the important history books are no longer in print,” says Sidhu, deploring political and official apathy towards heritage architecture in Punjab. His work has got him feedback and praise from Pakistan and even as far as from Canada. “Punjabis from Pakistan also view my videos. They are still emotionally attached to Indian cities and villages in which their ancestors lived before Partition,” he says, while describing his penchant for promoting Punjab’s rich cultural history and traditional way of life.
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Other YouTubers are also capitalising on the state’s rich culture. For example, Punjabi prodigy Kishtu K, who has uploaded only 41 musical videos on mainly folk songs to her YouTube channel, already has over 1.97 lakh subscribers. There are middle-aged YouTubers like Tayi Surinder Kaur, who has won many hearts with her witty and humorous videos shot in homely settings. She was interviewed by the BBC Punjabi last year.
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Many emerging musicians and singers — who are like unpaid interns on social media platforms — consider digital media platforms as launchpads for long-term careers in the entertainment industry.
In Amritsar district, Aakash, Poonam and Rishab, all in their early 20s, together run a four-year-old YouTube channel called Aakash Poonam. It has 129 videos and 2.68 lakh subscribers. While Rishab is a musician, Aakash and Poonam sing and act in the videos. None of them has received professional music training, and all three consider YouTube to be their music guru. Even though the digital media has democratised cyberspace, challenges persist for artists like this trio, who complain, “In the past four years, we have painfully realised it’s not just talent that matters. It is looks, clothes, financial resources and networking that determine success in the music industry.”
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Mostly, they make cover videos of the new and popular Punjabi songs with alterations in the original music. “We don’t get enough revenue from social media platforms, but definitely get noticed. As a result of it, we have started getting some recognition and work,” says Rishab, continuing, “Without financial resources, it becomes quite challenging to create content and post it online regularly to earn money. Many times, the revenue goes to big companies due to copyright issues.”
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But in some cases, renowned artists have appreciated their work. “After we did a cover on Peed, a famous song sung by Diljit Dosanjh and written by Raj Ranjodh last year, Diljit Paaji, not just wrote praise in the comments section but also posted it from his own social media handles,” recalls Rishab, known as ‘Rish’ in the world of music. For artists like them, they deplore that generating content every week becomes a challenge as their work involves innovation, creativity, technology and recording studios that ultimately require a lot of money.
For social media celebrities like Rupnagar resident Jasbir Singh Mahal, there is no such barrier. Singh is believed to be the oldest YouTuber of Punjab, who runs a channel, JaanMahal. With his 1.9k lakh videos, he has created an impressive subscriber base of 9.62 lakh. Earlier this month, he posted about half-a-dozen videos on his new purchase, a Mahindra Thar. Like his previous videos, these clips became instant hits among his viewers.
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While he posts on everything under the sun, rivals admit that he has a rare knack for making even the mundane viral. A recent video on his YouTube channel shows him telling a fellow vlogger, “With the regular stream of income, I try to help as many needy people as possible. But I don’t like when other YouTubers criticise me out of envy. They should focus on their work. Rest is entirely up to the viewers whether they appreciate the content or not.”
(This appeared in the print edition as "Punjabi Tadka")
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