HOW TO BECOME AN INTERNET CELEBRITY (WHETHER YOU MEAN TO OR NOT)

HOW TO BECOME AN INTERNET CELEBRITY (WHETHER YOU MEAN TO OR NOT) Brunch tracks down the people behind two of the latest Indian viral sensations and finds out just how they did it Shonan Kothari (23) Claim to fame: Organised a flash mob at Mumbai's CST station which saw 200 people dancing to Rang De Basanti right in the middle of the station How did the idea for the CST flash mob video come about?
I wanted the city to just liven up. I wanted us to laugh more. I thought we needed to have more art in the city, popular art, citizen art, etc. Cities all over the world have a lot of cultural activity. I felt that Bombay needed that.
Why do you think it went viral?
I think the fact that it was done with no agenda was very important to its success. It's very pan India; everyone can relate to the location and the song (Rang De Basanti). I think what makes viral videos go viral is spontaneity. That's the thing about the Internet... everyone is always looking at the next big entertaining thing. That said, we did NOT expect it to become so popular. We thought we would get about 10,000 views tops.
At what point did you realise it had become so popular?
Oh, even before putting it up! People at the station had recorded us on their cellphones and even those videos were getting over 20,000 views in a matter of hours! So I knew ours would really rock.
Wasn't it difficult getting permissions to shoot at CST?
It certainly was time-consuming and involved talking to a ton of people! But quite contrary to my expectations, all of them were extremely cooperative and heard me out. So getting permissions was fairly easy. Also, I didn't have to pay anyone off like I thought I would have to! Has life changed after the video?
Yes, lots of people have written to me and there has been such an outpouring of wishes that it's like a dopamine high! I have been interviewed by the The New York Times and the BBC World Service.
Celebrities like Abhishek Bachchan and Akshay Kumar have tweeted about the video too! Shahana Nair-Joshi (24) Claim to fame: Wrote an open letter to a Delhi boy that went viral in September this year So what was with the VERY caustic letter to a Delhi boy?
Nothing particularly. I was bitching about Delhi boys with a girl friend so I wrote it on a whim and posted it to my (recently created) blog. It wasn't based on anything at all, just a rant.
When did you realise it had gone viral?
I didn't even know what viral meant when it did. I didn't even have a Twitter account ­ I was made to open one after I woke up that morning and saw over 7,000 comments on my blog! It became too much and I had to get four friends to moderate and respond to those. Then, I saw #OpenLetterToADelhiBoy trending on Twitter and that's when it hit me.
We heard you received death threats post the letter going viral! Oh yes, I did. And once, I was sitting in a coffee shop and I heard two girls whisper “Isn't that the Madrasan (my screen name)?“ I was a little overwhelmed and I thought somebody was going to hurl something at me any time.
So you become a reluctant Internet celebrity...
Yes, and there are a few pluses: my blog has become really popular, I have a Facebook Fan Page and I have been approached to write by various publications. I am still trying to figure out exactly WHY my letter went viral and I think the humour just clicked with people.
Do you think going viral is simply about getting your 15 seconds of fame?
It depends. I think it's up to you to sustain it.
For example, I have been regularly blogging ever since the letter. I write at least one post a week. I also take requests from readers and write about the topics they care about most. I have got a fairly decent following on Twitter now. I have also discovered a lot of new bloggers since the incident and follow them regularly. I've even been offered advertising space on my blog by a lot of people! hands what happens to it. And I will tell you this: anything that is designed to go viral is designed to fail. You can never plan these things. The success of Kolaveri is nothing but a gigantic stroke of luck for its makers,“ he says. Being spontaneous, believes Kakkar, is 90 per cent of the battle. “If you don't have an open mind and if you plan things in advance, you will never, ever go viral,“ he says and cites the example of the popular `Nothing Official About It' campaign for Pepsi (the longest running campaign in the history of advertising at 25 years). “We were given total creative freedom; we wrote all the lines on the spot on the sets minutes before shooting those commercials,“ he laughs.
So is there no secret sauce? “None, whatsoever. It's luck, luck, luck all the way to the end (or the bank). Whatever they teach you in marketing schools is b******t.“
Meanwhile, at the offices of Sony Music India in Mumbai, a party is on in full swing. Even as you read this issue of Brunch, the official soundtrack of 3 is already hitting your neighbourhood music store, due to release tomorrow. On iTunes in the US and the UK, digital downloads of Kolaveri are going through the roof. “We're releasing a number of products and exclusive merchandise across the country. We are even going to focus on the Hindi-speaking market now and not just South India,“ says Arjun Sankalia.
In the first five days, cellphone service providers saw more than 22,000 downloads; and thousands have Kolaveri as their new dialer tune. Revenues for a single have never been better. You remember when we said that getting a video to go viral on the Internet is like trying to catch lightning in a bottle? Well, the Kolaveri guys just caught it.