‘Vloggers’ your next-door neighbours !
‘Vloggers’ your next-door neighbours!
Corona lockdown has given rise to a new trend of Vloggers on YouTube. As soon you open up YouTube, you will be flooded with Vlogs. So, who are these Vloggers and what is a Vlog?
Vloggers are different from regular YouTubers. Vloggers share daily log about their activities. A video blog or video log, sometimes shortened to vlog, is a form of blog for which the medium is video. Celebrities, commoners, students, travellers, couples, you name them and everyone is on the trail.
The first Vlog, I saw was of ‘Ruchi in China’ where Ruchi an Indian girl married to a Chinese, shares her life in China. I chanced to see one of her episode, where she shared a daily routine of cleaning the house, preparing food for her child etc. I was surprised to see the number of views and subscribers. It struck me, why people are so interested to know about her daily routine?
I am a travel freak, love seeing new places even if it is through books or videos. I watched her videos because apart from her daily routine she also shared places in China, and life there. She gave another lens to view Chinese life; very different from what we come to know through media.
After that, I browsed through many Vloggers. I noticed that apart from their daily routine, they have something unique to share. They are good orators off course, but most importantly they do not shy away from opening about their shortcomings. This makes many of the viewers hooked to their channels, for viewers are looking for originality and not made up stuff. Some of the Vloggers are even hitting views in millions.
Vlogs have made commoners popular like Celebrities but with a difference. They have same fame like stars but an appeal like your next door neighbours. Many of them even go live to interact with their viewers, while many even do Fan meets. Some of them have a purpose also, like one of my favourite Vlogger is Mayo from Japan who speaks Hindi, her vlogs has a purpose to bridge the gap between India and Japan. She comes out as very natural. Even her friend Kohei, another Japanese residing in Mumbai is very popular. Another one Ivana, a Dutch national staying in Bangalore runs her travel vlogs.
Celebrities are also not left behind. Very popular Vlogger is celebrity singer Maithili Thakur and her brothers. In fact the whole family. Typically in her Vlog, she shares her daily life, rehearsals, recordings, going to her new house, what is the progress in that, how she does makeup, her park, to fight with her brothers. People are able to connect to the simplicity and the hard work of Maithili and her family. Along with her, now her both brothers are also very popular. The younger one Sunny has natural sense of jokes and love for dogs. Everyone knows the street dog ‘Different’, the name given by him, and also the glucose biscuit he feeds the dog daily. The whole family is now very popular on YouTube. I believe, her vlogs have added to her popularity.
There are many more celebrities like TV actors Ratan Rajput, Deepika who are ready to open up their private lives. What they eat, what oil they use in their hair to their favourite face mask and even their maids and cooks.
What makes these celebrities to become an open book? Money of course is one major factor, as YouTube pays handsomely for the views they bring to their videos. But another factor is the need to increase their fan base. For some, it was a way to kill the loneliness and boredom during Corona lockdown.
Amongst many popular Vloggers are students also, especially those who are staying in different country from home country; they share their struggle, daily life, local culture etc. I saw few Indian students vlogs studying in South Korea. These students bring a completely different world to their home community.
The list of Vloggers is growing, so is their creativity in bringing new content to their viewers. Many of them have natural talent to connect with audience, and some seems made up. Some of them have even hired professional camera and video editing team. They share their YouTube channels like earlier people used to share their email or business card. A new way to connect is the trend.
While going through their videos and passion to share, one of the question I pondered upon – is this trend going to stay in long run or will fizzle away once something new comes up? Most probably yes, the trend might go away, unless the Vloggers keep reinventing their stories. But at this moment Vloggers are making hay while the Sun is shining.
Rakhi Sunil Kumar
