Case Study: Rohit Kumar— The gutka bhai
Internet is a great leveller of social classes. A young construction labourer started making lipsyncing videos on an app called Music.ly and over the period of 3 months became a trending sensation in India.
He must have promoted Vimal Gutka more than the all television ads of Ajay Devgan. What can we learn from this? What can it teach us about success in life? What does it reveal about people and the world? There are real life lessons in this short story of rags to riches and great wisdom of human life.
Watch his famous videos:
What is the lesson here? What makes his style so unique? How did it go viral? Can his success be duplicated? Let’s answer this questions with insight into human mind and mathematical analytics.
Story is the most powerful form to generate empathy and invoke emotional response from humans. Most of the individuals who posted videos on this app didn’t have a story in the videos or behind the videos. They were simply aiming for likes using age old techniques of beauty (temptation), comedy (Jesters) or Creativity (uniqueness). They were all ‘Aiming’ to be something. You knew that these people want something from you. They want your attention and reaction in the form of likes or comments. These videos were all manufactured, you could see through the layers that they all lacked honesty.
Rohit’s video appeared as a disruption to this ‘manufactured’ stream of Beauty, Comedy & Creativity. His videos are simply made by him as an exploration of app without any attempt to seek validation, reaction or likes. They are raw, unedited, unbashed, natural and most importantly honest. But there are many other such raw, honest videos on this app. Rohit’s vidoes had one very critical difference among others: They were uniquely shot. And with persistence of that style it became synonymous with his name. His style can be defined in one line: A gutka eating guy hanging from a rotating phone in the most raw surroundings.
For obvious reasons the style didn’t get along very well with the ‘hard working, like seeking, video manufacturers’ and they begun a stream of humiliation, demeaning, name calling with sheer intent to offend the guy. “Let’s show this low life the place he belongs to! how dare he think of posting videos among our videos!” These people were right in thinking that demeaning someone like this is justified. They are conditioned like this. However, they were soon to realise that all their upbringings and belief system were soon to be washed away like tiny sticks in tsunami with a torrent of humanity.
People got angry. They got angry because without any fault of an innocent guy he was getting humiliated, bullied and demeaned. This anger consolidated into a massive support in favour of Rohit Kumar.
A social activism began.
“okay! Hold on! so you want to humiliate a poor guy working on a construction site who just innocently doing the same activity as you do on internet! Why? he probably doesn't even know what this app is all about. And all you wanna be trying to look cool, rich, fashionable competing with each other for music.ly crown and here comes a disruption in the form of someone from way below, the ghettoes of poverty, badly dressed with the dirt of construction sand still on his clothes, unkept and raw and it sparks a spur of abuses by your guys. Not cool! Fuck you! you go boy…you make videos, I am standing here with you! Internet, is a motherfucking equalizer! What if Govt. couldn’t bring equality or social security to us! Here on this platform, in one corner of internet, we will have our own justice delivered, we will make this into a movement of equality, no one from now onwards will dare degrade someone based on his social status or outcast looks! We, the millennials, believe in EQUALITY & RESPECT!”
And then it just became something never seen before! A simpleton nobody rises and rises to unimaginable popularity! Breaking away all the barriers, strategies and rules of the game! A champion of people, for people by people!
There is a story. A story that engaged people.
How does success feel like? It is the most revealing reverence of truth of life! The girls who probably thought themselves to be too cool to make a duet with anyone or only with the best good looking boys on this app, suddenly dropped down all their inhibitions and began posting duets, comments and likes for this new underdog! Obviously it was not a change in their belief of equality in real life but here on this virtual platform they were ready to let go of their real life belief system of class division for a while and what for? To get a little more likes and rub off a little dust of fame from Gutka Bhai! Oh! the integrity of these people turned into a fossil.
People commenting on his videos have more likes than their actual videos on Music.ly! This is phenomenal. The power of people can bring titanic shift in perspective and can actually affect real change in society. This is a small tipping point of reflection of the power of millennials.
How to be famous:
- Have a unique style.
- Do your most honest work.
- Remain Ignorant & stay persistent.
But most important of all: Have a story with which people connect.
Rohit’s story is the most fabulous of stories. And what is the best story of them all: It is…the story of hope!