In the week since India banned 59 apps with links to China, “stars’’ on platforms such as TikTok and Likee hav…Read More
In the week since India banned 59 apps with links to China, “stars’’ on platforms such as TikTok and Likee have migrated to Indian ones like Roposo, Chingari and ShareChat but their fans and followers have not. It’s still early days though and the tide could change.
As of now, however, Dhanraj ‘Prakash’ Chavan, who had a following of 8.5 lakh on TikTok, has been left with just nine on Roposo. Mahesh Kapse, a finger painter, went from 12 lakh TikTok followers to two on Roposo. And brother-sister duo Sanatan Mahto and Savitri Devi have 67 Roposo followers now, down from the 27 lakh they had on TikTok.
For content creators from rural and suburban areas, virality had translated into money as much as fame. It was a lot of hard work — to put together a 15-second video, farm hand Dhanraj would spend two hours to strike the right note to his dance moves and then request a passing goat herder to hold the camera phone for the recording – but it was worth it. The 27-year-old partially blind farm worker from Jamde village in Maharashtra’s Dhule told TOI, “On November 22 last year, I uploaded my first video on Vigo. I didn’t know much about social media. My brother told me a ‘k’ next to the likes meant it was viral.”
On June 29, the day India banned the apps, TikTok was the fourth high free Android app in India. It had 200 million customers on the time and a score of 4.1 on PlayStore. Most banned brief video apps had been on the highest charts — VMate, Bigo Live and Likee. The house left by them was taken over by Indian brief video apps — Roposo is the highest Android app throughout all classes as of Monday, Moj is third, Chingari fourth, ShareChat fifth and Mitron sixth.
With many Indian apps vying for house, the person base appears to have been cut up and that might take time to consolidate. But that point means misplaced cash — these with massive follower bases would land model offers. “As a farm worker, the most I could make was Rs 150 in a day, but only in the rainy season. With these videos, I had started making Rs 35,000. I’m back to zero now,” Dhanraj stated.
“When we hit 10 lakh followers, we got Rs 3,500 from TikTok. It was just before the ban,” stated Savitri, the 25-year-previous from Kushmantand village close to Dhanbad in Jharkhand. She had shot to viral fame alongside together with her brother Sanatan with their dance movies in lockdown.
Others had simply seen a sliver of an opportunity but assume they’ve missed out. “When we hit 10 lakh followers, we got Rs 3,500 from TikTok. It was just before the ban. In fact, the day the ban was announced, one video of ours had got 12 lakh likes. We were hopeful,” stated Savitri Kumari, a 25-year-previous from Kushmantand village close to Dhanbad in Jharkhand. She had shot to viral fame alongside together with her brother Sanatan Kumar Mahto with their dance movies in lockdown. On Roposo, they’ve 67 followers. They used to have 27 lakh on TikTok. Their father is a marginal farmer, whom Sanatan helps throughout the week. He takes dance lessons over the weekend. “This is what my brother wanted to do since he was a child — dance. He had tried building a base on YouTube earlier, but it never took off. It was different on TikTok. It seemed easy.”
For Mahesh, too, his viral fame was constructed round a childhood aspiration. “Since I was nine years old, I wanted to become an artist. I never thought it would one day make me a celebrity,” he stated. He had joined TikTok in April, simply after the lockdown started. As his follower base grew, his presence was seen. But with the ban, he misplaced out on three provides for model offers that might have helped him monetise his following. He is out of a job and will have helped his household of 5. But he sees no alternative now. “I’ll have to start over.”